Morning Has Broken
by Bambu
Summary: Hermione accidentally encounters her former teacher several years after the war has ended. Something about his behavior is strange, and she cannot help but investigate. (Written 2006, and set in a post-war 'verse in which too many were lost to the war.)
1. Hypothesis

**Morning Has Broken**

By Bambu

**Summary: **Hermione accidentally encounters her former teacher several years after the war has ended. Something about his behavior is strange, and she cannot help but investigate.

**Author's Notes**: This is the story I wrote as a pinch-hitter for the 2006 SS/HG Exchange on LiveJournal (i.e., pre-book seven). My recipient was StormySkize, and I tailored the story to her requirements. Please note there are book six spoilers, and the alternate reality is set in a post-war world where the cost of the war was enormous.

I have many people to thank: Spoose and his beloved, LilithJ, for being great sounding boards, and most especially, SnarkyWench for her unwavering belief in my ability to write a readable story and helping me to make it so!

**Disclaimer**: Disclaimer: The underlying source material belongs in its entirety to JK Rowling (save where she has sold her rights to various entities). Other than my readers' enjoyment, I make no monetary profit from exercising my imagination and honing my skills as a writer. I've given a nod to a Nicholas Meyer book, and borrowed the title from an old Cat Stevens song. My darling beta has been kind enough to lend me the use of her Draught of Peaceful Death, a potion of her own invention in "Of Pain and Passion."

~o0o~

_Chapter One: Hypothesis_

Deep in the Ministry of Magic, I stood in a dark antechamber absently staring at the neon blue flames burning in the torches anchored to the round walls. I was unsettled.

As the round walls began to spin and the neon blue flame blurred in my vision, I realized what, or rather who, had unsettled me.

Not ten minutes previously I had encountered Severus Snape.

I thought he died right after the war. He had been put under house arrest – at that grotty row-house he called home – and no one I knew had heard from him since. It had been five years since he escaped an Azkaban sentence for killing Albus Dumbledore. In the end, he was the only survivor from that night atop the Astronomy Tower. With no witness to testify against him, and with his subsequent flow of information from deep within Voldemort's inner circle to mitigate the charges, Snape had been practically exonerated.

I read the trial notes printed in the _Daily Prophet_ from my carefully guarded room at St. Mungo's. My last living friend had been livid when _the greasy git_ didn't receive the punishment had Ron thought he deserved.

I had cried myself to sleep that night. We had won the war but at a terrible cost.

The rumbling cylindrical wall of doors stopped, reminding me where I was. Unerringly, I grasped the handle of the door which had melted Harry's knife all those years ago.

That door led to my office.

I wondered what Harry would think of my choosing to work in a place which had held such horrible memories for him. Ron thought I was mad to have become an Unspeakable. What he didn't know was that I was more than that - I was an Unfathomable.

The first time I heard the title I laughed until tears streamed down my face. Septima Vector had simply watched me until I subsided into sporadic hiccups before saying, "Needed a laugh, did you?"

"You've no idea," I had replied. She had approached me with an offer a short few months after Voldemort's unlamented demise and my parents' deaths.

I listened to her explain the concept of integrated magical theory, my intellectual interest piqued by her description, and then I had followed her to the ninth level of the Ministry of Magic with barely a shudder when entering the antechamber. Considering the things I had seen, the things Harry, Ron, and I had done in the pursuit and destruction of the Horcruxes and Voldemort, facing the memories of our fifth year skirmish had been negligible in comparison.

The dark-haired Arithmancy teacher had introduced me to Meg Croaker, head of Unfathomable recruitment and a member of the small, very secretive department.

"Your reputation precedes you, Miss Granger." Meg's voice was the literal embodiment of her family name, and I found out later that she had been one of Augustus Rookwood's victims during the First Voldemort Rising.

I had accepted her offered hand. "I'd like to say the same, Madam Croaker, but I've never heard of you before."

She had laughed at that, and nodded her head, sharply reminding me of the late Mad-Eye Moody. "That's extremely good to hear. Come along now, we have much to discuss."

I followed the wand-thin witch into the depths of the Ministry and I've never looked back.

Five intensive years later, I strode along the torch-lit corridor and counted the plain black doors… seven… ten… eleven… finally pressing my palm flat on number thirteen. Recognizing my touch, the door opened silently. My superstitious Muggle mother would have been horrified by my office number, but Arithmantically it symbolized several things: hard work, the development of order out of chaos, and being part of a team. Mum would have thought _that_ suited me perfectly. It did.

Stepping into the austere office with dove gray walls, I removed the Hide In Plain Sight bracelets from my wrists. They were a prototype I've been developing over the past several months for Magical Law Enforcement. They temporarily altered one's appearance at the cellular level, and were a better disguise than the methods currently in use.

Today's in-the-field practicum was a complete success.

It was my eighth successful venture outside the Ministry's walls, and my fourth in Knockturn Alley where _Hermione Granger_ would be too easily recognized, not to mention, entirely unwelcome. I've taken to looking markedly different during each trial run, setting the fine adjustments of the gold and platinum bands to alter my hair and eye color, and on one excruciating trip, my height.

In my search for esoteric uses of magic, traveling incognito has been extremely beneficial. I've been able to gather information in the most unlikely places. As an Auror, Ron would have to arrest the majority of my sources, but I wasn't constrained by inflexible and sometimes ridiculous laws.

The bracelets jangled in my hand as I passed the head-height fireplace I used for Floo calls year-round and warmth in the winter, and slipped behind my desk. The only thing on its ebony surface was the hand-carved Rowan case for my H.I.P.S, as Davy Gudgeon, my Charms partner, called them.

Carefully replacing the bracelets in the box, I spoke a single word to activate the cabinet on my left. I called it the Cupboard of Requirement, and I was the first Unfathomable to know how it worked. My unconventional experiences at Hogwarts had prepared me well.

Placing the Rowan box on its shelf, the cupboard appeared to swallow the box, presenting instead another shelf laden with a granite basin. Carved runes encircled the basin's lip, and silver light shimmered from its depths. It was my Pensieve.

The swirling silver strands within the granite basin were a sequential timeline of the H.I.P.S. field trips. Fingering the carved runes, I remembered the first time Harry had told me about this marvelous tool. I had been fascinated by the concept of isolating memory strands, but Harry had never found my calling them home movies funny.

I fidgeted, and firmly told myself to quit stalling.

For some reason, I was hesitant to review my encounter with Snape. It was unlike me to be so reluctant. Rarely have I shied away from unpleasant tasks – well, except for that Boggart my third year in DADA and the final encounter with the red-eyed snake-man. In fact, my morning's task of sorting through our stock of potions ingredients, from the mundane to the rare, had given me the reason to go to Knockturn Alley.

Two of my colleagues could brew that most temperamental of potions, Wolfsbane, and the Unfathomables kept a monthly supply for the newest addition to our ranks, Gabrielle Delacour. She was Fenrir Greyback's final victim and unique in the wizarding world: part-Veela, part-werewolf, and part-witch. She was exceedingly bright, and most-deservedly an Unfathomable. Gabrielle and I were the youngest of the eleven-person department.

Bill Weasley had avenged himself, Remus Lupin, and Gabrielle the night Greyback had defiled his young sister-in-law. Regrettably, it had been Bill's last act. Some of my worst nightmares were of that fatal skirmish. At that point, so near the end of the war, Bill had been the only other living member of Ron's family. When the curse-breaker died, Ron had been inconsolable.

Sitting at my pristine desk, I couldn't prevent the memories flooding my mind. The night Bill had died was also the night I lost my virginity. Harry had gone to break the news personally to the Delacours while Ron had fallen apart in my arms.

"How can I be the last? They're all better'n me… every one of 'em… even that git Percy!" He had howled his anguish and put his fist through a wall in the dilapidated old house in which we were hiding. "Fuck! Fuck! 'Mione … help—"

Tears had streamed down his face, and I soothed him in the most primal way a woman could. I've never regretted it, only the subsequent attempts at a relationship which could never work between us. We lasted as a couple for three tumultuous months, until Remus Lupin was killed by Peter Pettigrew in a duel which showed the depravity to which the traitor had sunk.

Ron had cast his first _Sectumsempra_ that day, killing his former familiar.

I pressed my forehead to the cool surface of my desk, keening softly in my throat. If these were the sorts of things I was going to relive because of my encounter with Snape, then I hoped never to see him again.

Those memories were carefully walled-up, and only brought out when Ron would show up at my flat, half-pissed and clutching a fifth of Ogden's Old Firewhisky. "Hey, 'mione," he would slur. "D'you 'member when Hagrid tol' Harry 'n me to follow th' spiders?"

His blue eyes would be haunted, and I never turned him away.

"No, Ron. I was Petrified in the hospital wing when you visited Aragog. Why don't you come in and tell me all about it?"

I would usher him into the sitting room, bracing his long body against mine. Those nights were difficult and I always ended up hung-over and stroppy the next day.

Those first two years after the end of the war, Ron had found his way to my place about once a month, but it had tapered off to once a year now. It was never on the expected anniversary of Voldemort's defeat. Instead, we both still crumbled on September first, the date the three of us had first laid eyes on each other.

Abruptly irritated with myself, I sat up and scrubbed my face with my fingers as if I could rub off the unexpectedness of seeing Snape again or the upwelling of memories that seeing him had caused. Withdrawing my holly wand from my left sleeve – a gift from Arthur Weasley after mine had been broken saving George's life from Bellatrix Lestrange - I pressed its tip to my temple. I pushed the memory of George's death three weeks later from my conscious mind, and thought of ancient Mr. Pennyweight.

Removing a memory strand is a peculiar, almost painful sensation - like an amputation. You can feel the excision from deep within your brain; sometimes it's only a nick, and then, at other times, it feels as if you've cleaved your brain in half. This _memento_ was multi-stranded, including both the conversation with the Apothecary as well as my brush against Snape.

Wincing as I made the extraction, a thick, silvery thread dangled from the tip of my wand. It clung like spider's web to the holly, and I shook it off, adding it to my half-full Pensieve. Discrete strands cycled in a lazy ouroboros, gleaming in the candlelight of my office.

With another flick of my wand, my office door swung shut, and my personal security spells locked into place. I scooted my chair close to the desk, swishing my wand in a clockwise arc over the bowl, ensuring the memory would unfold in timely fashion. Once, I accidentally entered a Pensieve revolving widdershins, and had been completely disoriented by a backward flowing event.

No more stalling.

I swallowed hard, and dipped my head into the stream of glowing light.

One gets used to the initial disorientation of time and space, and I righted myself within seconds, landing neatly on the metaphoric balls of my feet on the stained, uneven cobblestones of the infamous alley. Quickly looking around the narrow lane, the hag selling poorly-Charmed timepieces from a rickety cart held together by magic was exactly where she had been that morning.

My memory-self passed me, and no one could recognize Hermione Granger in the blonde, grey-eyed witch wearing traditional pure-blood robes. She could easily have been taken for one of Lucius Malfoy's by-blows. It was a look carefully crafted to engender nervousness and acceptance in the seamier parts of wizarding London. It worked beautifully.

I watched as my disguised-self stopped to sneer properly at the hag's wares, and then stepped past to the entrance of Pennyweight's Apothecary, one of the better frequented shops at the bend of Knockturn Alley. As memory-Hermione grasped the old brass knob, the door swung inward, pulling her rather gracelessly into the shop. She stumbled awkwardly over the uneven wooden flooring, and would have fallen had it not been for the tenacious grip of the customer exiting.

While watching the brief encounter unfold, I rubbed my left bicep, where the customer had grabbed me. His grip had been so strong I would probably bruise. A fleeting thought about the disparity of strength to appearance danced through my brain while my other self stammered a thank you to the taller, older wizard in robes which were a far sight worse than those Remus Lupin used to wear.

Memory and visual cues replayed before me.

"So sorry. Thank you, sir." My earlier, disguised self looked at glittering eyes in a pale, ascetic face. A deep furrow marked the separation between his brows, almost an extension of the most prominent feature on his face: his hooked nose.

"You would save yourself the apology if you paid closer attention, madam." He practically sneered the words, but quickly bent to retrieve the package he had dropped when my memory-self knocked against his too-thin body.

It was indeed Severus Snape.

I chastised myself for not having recognized him instantly. Mad-Eye would have hexed me, and deservedly so.

In hindsight, it was easy to see how bloodshot Snape's eyes were and how badly his hands shook when clinging to his package. My memory-self had already been looking beyond him, dismissing the moment as a brief inconvenience with an anonymous stranger.

My present self's attention was entirely focused on my former professor.

Snape paused while straightening and seemed to inhale deeply as if a boar-hound scenting buried fungi. He looked out at the street, his eyes scanning the passersby in quick darting glances. His gaze settled fleetingly on the hag before giving one sharp shake of his head, causing his long, extremely shiny hair to reflect the sun and ripple in stringy hanks around his narrow face. He turned toward the blonde, H.I.P.S. version of myself and a thoughtful expression briefly crossed his face.

He pocketed his paper-wrapped parcel, and from my vantage point of watching the memory, I noticed his ebony wand clutched in his other hand. Snape's grip was white-knuckled, and I wondered what in the world he had bought.

My memory-self had turned to him once more, a half-smile on her lips. "I really am sorry for inconveniencing you, sir."

With a sharp nod, he swept from the building and into the lane. Memory-Hermione turned to watch him walk away, and from my perspective now, I thought it rather sad his robes no longer billowed. My fanciful notion died along with my reminiscent smile as the small hairs at the nape of my neck stood on end, and a frisson of prescience slithered up my spine.

I had seen that view of Snape before.

Those shabby robes, the same shiny hair, the same odd posture were a familiar sight. A recent sight. Still grappling with the enormity of that realization, I was startled when the Pensieved memory continued inside Pennyweight's.

My blonde-self entered the shop, and I railed at her for my negligent attention. Granted, my curiosity was piqued later, but not soon enough, damn it! I should have known Snape no matter how many years it had been since we were on speaking terms.

The soft-edged memory continued.

"Does madam require assistance after her stumble?" The shopkeeper had come from behind his counter. Mr. Pennyweight was short, plump and smelled like a combination of brandy and cigars.

Memory-Hermione had quickly put him at his ease, asking after the aconite. When he returned with a fresh supply of the herb from his storeroom, she inspected the leaves – one never purchased ingredients from the front of this Apothecary.

Disparaging my complacence during peace time, I gave the next bit of the memory my undivided attention. My disguised-self had placed an order for bezoars. In my line of work, the occasional poisoning isn't unheard of, and I've never forgotten Harry's saving Ron's life with one.

This was the important bit of the memory.

I asked, "Was that wizard who helped me a frequent customer?"

The old man's eyes immediately snapped to my H.I.P.S. face. "Why do you ask, Miss…?"

"Brocklehurst, sir. Penelope Brocklehurst," she had replied smoothly. The Brocklehursts were a prolific pureblood family, some of whom had fought with the Ministry and some of whom had been Death Eaters.

Pennyweight didn't question the authenticity of her parentage, and she had pressed on with her inquiry. "I just thought to thank the gentleman more properly if I was to encounter him again. I could have taken a nasty fall."

Since there was a display of snap-toads swimming in a large, glass aquaria at the front of the store, it was a plausible excuse.

Mr. Pennyweight avoided looking her in the eye. "I wouldn't say he's a frequent customer, Miss Brocklehurst, but he comes in from time-to-time. Shall I pass on your regards?"

"I would be most appreciative, sir."

There was nothing in the rest of the conversation to claim my interest, but then my eye caught sight of a small vial filled with a viscous, almost-black liquid. It had been hastily tucked behind a sack of fresh peppermint leaves, and it had a distinctive gold stopper.

It was blood.

I stared at the vial for several minutes as the Pensieved memory played out.

What kind of blood?

It was an extremely rare ingredient. There were few potions which incorporated it in their end-products; most of those were Dark, and many illegal.

After Snape left, there was no one other than the owner and me in the shop. Regardless of the type, blood was too expensive a commodity to leave out of regulated storage for long. I made the intuitive, half-informed assumption that the vial of blood related to Snape's visit. What had he wanted with it?

Surmising the small bottle was in close proximity to other ingredients Snape had purchased or looked over, I leaned across the counter to see what else was next to the vial. The fresh peppermint leaves I had already noticed, but there was another bag adjacent to the aromatic herb. It held a small quantity of dried leaves, generally oval in shape with tapering ends. The leaves were a uniform deep-green on the upper side, and grey-green on the lower surface.

Instinctively, I inhaled deeply, hoping to identify the leaves from their scent only to remember that smells didn't accompany Pensieved memories. The memory ended while my eyes were still focused on the leaves. At this point, my head was filled with more questions than answers.

I closed my eyes, concentrated and abruptly returned to my office.

It was a given that Potions Master Snape would be a consistent Pennyweight's customer, and was most likely the purchaser of the blood, origin unknown, the dried leaves, origin also unknown, and the fresh peppermint.

Why did it matter?

He might never have been nice to me, and he might have had conflicted loyalties, but Snape's actions had saved my life time and again, and without his help, Voldemort would not have been defeated.

And he had really looked terrible.

The thought startled me. He had looked as awful now as he had at the end of the war: all nerve and nose.

Ron had laughed when he heard me say that the first time. But later, after it was all over, I had commented that surely Snape could get some well-earned rest. Ron had said rather cruelly, "Too bad it's not the permanent kind."

To my chagrin, I had been too numb, too wounded to correct him, but that conversation was prominent in my thoughts now. Today's Snape didn't look as if he had benefitted from a decent night's sleep in decades. In fact, if I were honest, he looked worse than he had then.

Never before had I wondered what happened to my former teacher.

Now my curiosity was piqued.

A whirring, clunking noise drew my attention to the Cupboard of Requirement responding to my unvoiced need. It shifted to offer parchment and an assortment of writing paraphernalia. Smiling, I grabbed foolscap, quill, and a bottle of green ink. Green was the color for a project's initial stages.

Jotting down the salient points of my experience with Snape, I included his notable physical characteristics: '_shiny, possibly oily hair; pale skin (no blemishes); bright eyes (blood-shot and red-rimmed); too-thin frame (does he eat?); nervous, almost paranoid behavior (he was a spy); and almost incongruous strength_.'

Next, a list of questions, including: '_What is he brewing and why? Is his appearance related to his eating habits? Does he have enough food to eat? Is he ill? Where have I seen him before and how many times?_'

Another sheet of parchment and another list: '_Snape's potion requires blood, fresh peppermint and another type of leaf (origin unknown)._'

I racked my brain for all the potions I knew which required peppermint, from a simple tisane to settle an upset stomach to a variant of Wit-Sharpening Potion. There hadn't been any ginger or armadillo bile on the counter, which discounted the Wit-Sharpening Potion.

It didn't seem plausible that Snape was brewing something Dark. It would be illegal and he wasn't a stupid man. I scribbled another note to check the terms of his sentence.

Nibbling on my lower lip, a habit from school, I considered another dip into the Pensieve to check the memories of all my recent Apothecary visits. I knew I had seen Snape before today, but couldn't place where or exactly when.

A magical knock and a projected voice interrupted my thoughts. "'Ermione? Are you ready for lunch?"

It was Gabrielle.

Today was the last day before the full moon when she would be sequestered in her office for the following forty-eight hours. Waving my wand at the door, she entered as soon as the last security spell was released. She had grown into the promise of her early beauty and was blonde, lithe, and stunning. As a result of her attack, however, she'd become quite reserved.

"Sorry, 'elle. I lost track of time." I reluctantly left the Pensieve in place.

"_Je comprends_," she said. Sometimes she slipped and spoke French to me, and having spent a number of childhood holidays across the Channel, I understood her for the most part. Her eyes lit on the luminous glow from the stone basin, but she didn't ask about it, and I didn't offer any answers. It was an unwritten code in our department.

"Where shall we go today?" I palmed the lock on my door before following her down the corridor.

"I thought we could go to the Leaky Cauldron," Gabrielle said, and then she blushed prettily.

"Really?" I was surprised. She usually hated eating at the Leaky Cauldron. It was too dark and too busy for her tastes, even though it reminded me of all the reasons the wizarding world had first appealed to me.

Initially, Gabrielle and I had gravitated toward one another because of our shared history, the fact that we had survived the war, and our positions as the youngest members of an unmentionable department within the Ministry. As we worked together, we had begun to share confidences.

Surprisingly, her love life was more barren than mine. I had dated a few times since the war, mostly Muggles and one disastrous attempt to rekindle a youthful infatuation with Viktor Krum. After the fifth time I went out with a wizard who wanted to know the sordid details about 'the final battle,' and 'what was it like to know _him - _you know, Harry Potter?' Very quickly, I grew cautious about dating.

When Gabrielle continued to flush as we ascended the stairs, my suspicions were aroused. "'elle, you didn't?"

She wouldn't meet my eyes, and I knew she had invited someone to join us. At some point in our friendship, she had put me in the role of older sister, and sought my approval for the wizards she dated. To date, none had gained my approval.

"But thees one eez different, 'ermione. Really." She nodded emphatically, and her hair rippled like a sheet of hammered silver.

"All right. Who is he?"

By this time, we had reached the Atrium and crossed to the wall of fireplaces. Gabrielle grabbed a handful of grainy Floo Powder and tossed it into the flames. "You'll see." She winked mischievously, then turned to the fireplace and said clearly, "The Leaky Cauldron."

In a flare of green-tinged fire, she was gone.

I resigned myself to a horrid lunch with some Veela-enchanted wizard and grabbed my own handful of Floo Powder before someone cut in front of me.

The Leaky Cauldron hadn't changed much in all the years I had been going there. It was still a little shabby looking. There were several witches who looked as if they had come up from the country for the day, and in the corner were two hags sharing a number twelve cauldron of stew. Seated near the door to Charing Cross Road was a warlock wearing Wizengamot robes, having what appeared to be a steak and kidney pie while reading _Charms for the Modern Age_.

Gabrielle's shining blonde hair was like a flag waving, and I made my way toward her as she was hugging a tall, lean wizard. He was bent over, obscuring my view, until he straightened.

I gasped, "Ron!"

"Hello, Hermione," he said, and pulled me into a ferocious hug. He had been abroad on assignment for Magical Law Enforcement for the past several months, and I didn't know he was back in England.

When he let me go, I turned toward the smirking blonde. "You were holding out on me."

She laughed, and the musical sound rippled through the aged building. Several heads turned in our direction and one young wizard stood abruptly, staring at Gabrielle as if she was the Rosetta Stone and he had been searching for it his entire life.

Ron took one step in the bedazzled man's direction, blocking his view. It was entirely chivalrous and there was a protective quality to my oldest friend's gesture.

I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms. "Is there something you two want to tell me?"

A flush stained Ron's cheeks. I hadn't seen him look so young in years.

"Well, er, yeah," he began to say.

Gabrielle jumped in with both feet. "I'm in love with Ron."

I sat down abruptly and stared at them. The looks on their faces told me their relationship was new, it was precious, and it was serious. My heart lurched and tears welled in my eyes.

"All right, 'Mione?" Ron asked, concern readily apparent on his face.

"All right? Of course, I'm all right! This is wonderful. Tell me everything."

The floodgates opened. They had told no one of their relationship, which began quite innocently when Gabrielle ventured into the Muggle grocery, Sainsbury's, near Ottery St. Catchpole, where Ron still lived in his family's home. They had ended up making dinner together and talking over old times.

After the first effusive minutes of listening to the minute details of their first date, my ears seemed to shut off and my thoughts strayed to enigma of Snape.

"Ron," I said abruptly, "can you find out about Severus Snape's Wizengamot sentence?" My face grew hot as he stopped speaking mid-sentence. "Er… sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt."

Gabrielle gave me a pointed look, our fish and chips arrived, and Ron replied, "Nah, it's alright, 'Mione." He shared a look with his girlfriend. "We know how you are."

When I raised an eyebrow they both laughed, and a rueful grin tugged at my mouth. "All right, all right. So I'm a horrible friend who doesn't want to know how many mussels there were in the bouillabaisse. Sorry." We all laughed, and then I asked, "So, do you know about Snape, Ron?"

"No. I can find out if it's important." He took a large bite of his fish while he asked the question. His manners were not what they had been when he was a teen, but they were still quite casual. Gabrielle handed him a serviette, which he accepted with good grace.

There was a winsome quality in the way they interacted which distracted me from my question. In just that one interaction between the two, their long and happy life seemed as clear as prophesy was ambiguous. Ron would never have accepted criticism from me so placidly, and in truth, I would never have offered it so discreetly.

"Hermione?"

I realized I was smiling rather fatuously at them. "Sorry. It's just nice to see you both happy. Look, I don't know how important the Snape thing is. It's… I'm just curious."

Ron gave me a shrewd look. "I'll memo you as soon as I get into the office."

"Floo me, instead." It was a subtle way of asking him to keep the inquiry confidential. Over the years, we had perfected a shorthand form of communication, and he nodded with complete understanding.

Lunch was fun, and my two companions left me to stop at Slug &amp; Jiggers in Diagon Alley while they walked back to the Ministry together.

Crossing the threshold into the large shop, its customary sulfuric smell hit my nostrils. Raptor claws and wildflowers hung from the rafters, and barrels of ingredients crowded the floor. The sunlight was highly filtered to prevent its harsh rays leaching the potency from raw ingredients. Behind the counter was a floor-to-ceiling wall of shelves filled with canisters, tins, and other assorted jars holding all manner of items.

I stared at the row of glass jars containing several varieties of peppermint, lost in thought.

"May I help you, Miss Granger?"

I turned to meet the intelligent, green eyes of Robert Boyle's great-grandson. It took me three years before I could look into his eyes. It hadn't mattered that he and Harry weren't related. "Mr. Boyle, it's nice to see you again."

"Is there something in particular you're looking for?" He adjusted his practical robes, and switched the jars containing spearmint and lemon peppermint.

Glancing over my shoulder, I made certain we were alone in the area. I'd grown less cautious over the years from my war-time paranoia, but the morning's reminder had been unsettling. "Is it possible to step into your office for a moment?"

It was an unusual request, and he took an involuntary step backwards before leading the way toward his office.

We wound through aisles of dried fungi and other hand-picked flora, then down my least favorite aisle past the dried Horklump display. It was the 'eye' aisle. In my years living as a witch, I've learned to deal with raw potions ingredients, but never quite managed to quell my revulsion for using eyeballs in potions. Passing the newts, sheep, kelpie, kappa, and grindylow jars, I ignored the variegated orbs staring in all directions.

Neither of us spoke until we were inside Boyle's office with an Imperturbable protecting the door. He ushered me to a guest chair, and then sat behind his scarred oak desk.

"I had thought all this unpleasantness was behind us."

"I'm not suggesting otherwise, sir. However, I have a rather sensitive question to ask you."

He relaxed, but was still, quite obviously, on his guard.

"It's actually two questions. One, has Severus Snape been purchasing supplies from you, and two, has he ever asked you to provide blood?"

"Miss Granger!" He leapt to his feet.

I didn't visibly react; I simply stared at him.

It had taken years for me to finally learn the value of a closed mouth. In most circumstances, by waiting long enough, the information would come spilling out a source's mouth.

This instance was no exception.

By the time I left John Boyle's office, my curiosity about Snape's activities had evolved into morbid fascination – and more than a little worry – that a wizard of his capabilities had sunk to such base and vulgar depths.

It seemed that Severus Snape had become an addict.

The unidentifiable leaves from Pennyweight's were coca leaves, and while they weren't illegal in the wizarding world as they were in the Muggle world, there were strong precautions about their use. In fact, they were one of the ingredients in a standard Pepperup Potion and several variants of an Invigoration Draught. It was common to find N.E.W.T.-level students drinking mild infusions of coca leaves steeped in peppermint tea during intense periods of revision. However, coca leaves were highly addictive with prolonged use.

It was almost a given that Snape had been using them regularly, for a number of years. Remembered snippets of phrases and conversations bounced around my mind as I returned to my office.

"_Doesn't he ever sleep?"_

"_He's a vampire, I tell you. He's always awake at night."_

"_Snape took thirty points from Ravenclaw, just because I was out after curfew."_

During the height of the war, when his life had been hanging by a word, Snape consistently met with McGonagall at four o'clock in the morning. She used to complain that he was too 'perky' for her tastes. Ron and Harry used to laugh until they cried over the concept of a perky Snape.

According to Boyle's information, he had supplied Snape with a number of raw materials - coca leaves, peppermint, and ginger among them - in bulk quantities for several of years.

I wasn't really surprised. Most everyone I knew lived off stimulants of one sort or another during the end of the war. That's when I discovered espresso in triple shots.

But Snape continued to require the stimulating ingredients after the war was over, and his needs had altered to more dangerous substances. He began to purchase Re'em blood, which was an expensive and rare commodity. It was used in potent Strengthening Solutions, and similar to Muggle steroids, was prohibited from use in Magical Sports.

Boyle had provided Snape with Re'em blood on occasion, certainly less frequently than Snape requested it. However, the real falling out between the former Order of the Phoenix colleagues occurred two years before, and it had been irreparable.

"I have a respectable trade and I intend to keep it, Miss Granger," Boyle said.

Apparently in addition to the other raw materials and ingredients Snape had frequently purchased – he had consistently ordered every item on the standard N.E.W.T. year list – he had asked Boyle to acquire a highly questionable ingredient: powdered Chinese Fireball egg. It was a Class A Non-Tradeable commodity. Had he been caught, Mr. Boyle would have lost his business, and earned an extended stay in Azkaban.

The information was troubling, and I returned to the Ministry.

As soon as I entered my office, I flung my outer robes across the single guest-chair before settling my behind my desk and grabbing a quill.

With Boyle's information, it was easy to make an educated guess that the blood I had seen at Pennyweight's was Re'em blood, and the leaves I couldn't identify were coca. I amended the chart I had begun earlier, adding powdered dragon's egg and ginger to it.

I knew next to nothing about dragon's eggs in potions making, so I twirled my chair to face my second cupboard. It was one of the perquisites which had swayed my decision to join the Unfathomables. I remembered the first time I laid eyes upon the tri-cornered cupboard. It had been the day of my interview with Meg Croaker. She ushered me into her office and unfurled a scroll with my Hogwarts records, including marks for every subject I had taken as a student in addition to the extra-curricular adventures Harry, Ron and I had stumbled into.

She had given me an assessing once-over, and asked in her rough voice, "You're a Muggle-born, aren't you?"

I had stiffened at the question. I didn't know her at all well, even if she was Professor Vector's friend. But the war was over, and I had chosen to take the question at face value. "Yes. Does that matter?"

"Just verifying data." Meg had opened a tall, black, corner cupboard revealing shelves upon shelves of books, spinning as if they were on a carousel. "Muggle-borns, Granger," she demanded.

The shelves ceased to spin, and a single, slender volume had obligingly thrust itself off the shelf and into her hands. I had been entranced… in lust….

I had wanted one of those cupboards fiercely.

I had been too busy trying to read the titles on the shelves to notice when Meg finished her fact-checking. Her harsh bark of laughter had grabbed my attention, though.

"If you decide to accept our offer, Miss Granger, and if the rest of the team agrees on your inclusion, then your office will have a book nook." She had patted the side of the cupboard and the books began to spin once again.

"Do I need to bring my books into the office then?"

"I don't think you understand. These nooks are directly connected with the Ministry's central library. We have access to a copy of every magical book printed since before Gutenberg decided to educate Muggles."

The idea of having such a wealth of knowledge available to me sweetened whatever offer the Unfathomables might have made. Invariably, it has become one of Meg's standing jokes. "I'm not sure we ever needed to pay Hermione a salary. She would've donated her time just to have access to the book nook."

It took me a year before I realized every Unfathomable felt exactly the same way.

Suddenly, a leather-bound book leapt into my hands, ending my momentary nostalgia. It was dark green, and its title read, _Class A Non-Tradeables: Potions Ingredients_. The volume was fairly heavy and magically expandable. It grew or shrunk with the addition or deletion of the Wizengamot's decisions.

Fortunately, the book was arranged alphabetically and not according to the chronological date of an ingredient's inclusion, and that made finding the entry regarding the Chinese Fireball (or Liondragon) easy. There was an accompanying photograph of a fully mature scarlet dragon, a golden fringe of spikes around its face and protuberant eyes, guarding her clutch of mottled red and golden flecked eggs. I skimmed the entry, growing increasingly uneasy with the information I read.

A flare of green lit the room and Ron's voice echoed through my small fireplace. "Hermione, lift the Privacy Spell."

With a quick wave of my wand and a non-verbal spell, Ron's head was soon poking through green-tinged flames.

"Snape's files are locked down pretty tight."

I frowned, and he noticed.

"I take it you don't want to make this an official inquiry, then? It would only take your signature."

"I'd rather not cause trouble for him just because I'm satisfying my curiosity."

"Poor bastard probably doesn't need the attention."

"What do you mean?"

"We're not kids anymore." He looked at me expectantly.

I rolled my eyes. "Ron, I need a little more explanation than that."

"He was a right git when we were kids, but even that first year at school… you know, 'Mione. Quirrell was there."

I remembered the events of first year, how frightening solving Snape's puzzle had been, and how brave Ron and Harry were. "I know. It didn't get any easier, did it?"

"It still hasn't, really. When I was in training, we spent a week analyzing Snape's involvement in the war."

"You did?"

"Yeah. I always thought he wanted to kill Dumbledore, but when we studied Snape's espionage tactics, I realized I was wrong. There's loads of times he saved Harry's life when he didn't have to."

"And yours, and mine."

"Right. He's ruddy brilliant, remember his book?"

I did indeed remember the half-blood Prince's book. Ron didn't require an answer from me, but I nodded anyway.

His tone became thoughtful. "Snape never seemed to take the easy way, did he? It would have been easy for him to deliver Harry or one of us to V-Voldemort. Other prisoners liked to talk about the numbers of times Snape was _Crucio'd_. He could easily have double-crossed Dumbledore, but Snape followed Dumbledore's orders, no matter the cost. He could have gone into hiding like Malfoy, but he didn't. He could have chosen to die on the battlefield instead of facing charges, but he didn't. He's only once chosen the easy way rather than the right way."

"I never really thought about it in these terms."

"I never understood why Dad—" Ron swallowed hard, "—why Dad respected Snape as much as he did. I do now. I think it's because we're not kids anymore that we can see it."

I blinked my eyes rapidly. It was unexpected that he had given so much thought to Snape's circumstances, and I was ashamed of myself for never having recognized the enormity of the acerbic wizard's sacrifices. "I don't quite know what to say, except I'm more curious than ever."

"You want me to call in a favor?"

I looked into my friend's clear eyes and open expression, and knew I'd been very lucky that Halloween night all those years ago. "Would it be a very big one?"

"Yeah, probably."

"What I really want to know is how he's surviving."

"Now that you've mentioned it, I do, too. I'll call in that favor."

"I appreciate it."

"It'll probably be tomorrow before I have the information, though."

"It's all right, there's no real rush." Saying that, I felt an odd sort of foreboding. Snape had looked dreadful that morning. "But if you can…"

Ron grinned at me, his dimples flashing in his green-tinted skin. "I'll try to have it by elevenses tomorrow."

"Ta, Ron!" I smiled at him.

"Later, 'Mione." And with a quick flare of green, he was gone.

He'd given me a lot to think about.

I decided to take a walk. Sometimes I thought more clearly when I was moving. Tucking my wand into my sleeve, I left the office, and wandered the halls deep within the Department of Mysteries.

After several minutes, I paused to poke my head through Aurelius Flint's open doorway. He was in his late forties and looked very much like his mother's side of the family. He was related to Molly Weasley, and I could sometimes see my surrogate mother's smile in his. Aurelius stood behind his desk, shouting authors' names and titles which I assumed corresponded to the bound volumes leaping from his book nook and onto his desk.

My tapping on his doorframe interrupted his concentration, and when he turned to look at me a book smacked him in the shoulder.

"Sorry, Flinty. I was curious about something."

Apparently anyone who knew me knew that my curiosity was a driving force, because Aurelius shifted his attention to me. The bookshelves continued to spin, but he ignored them. "And what might that be, little Gryff?"

He had graduated from Slytherin three years before Snape, and we had played up our House rivalry when I first joined the department. He was Marcus Flint's uncle, but his branch of the family had never been Death Eaters. He was a dab hand at Potions, and was one of the two Unfathomables who brewed Wolfsbane.

"What do you know about powdered Chinese Fireball eggs?"

His gray-flecked eyebrows rose almost to his hairline. I could see the unspoken 'don't ask, don't tell' rule being sorely tested. "I strongly suggest you don't eat any unless you have some magically activated charcoal or a bezoar or a broad-spectrum antidote for poison on hand."

"Poison?" I asked. What the hell was Snape doing with a poisonous substance? "I hadn't ever heard it was poisonous. Is that why it's a Class A—"

"—Non-Tradeable?" He raked his blunt fingers through his shaggy hair. "That, and the fact it's highly addictive. The eggshells, which comprise sixty percent or more of the powder, contain arsenikon as one of two active ingredients."

"Arsenikon?"

"Better known in Britain as arsenic."

I sucked in my breath. "Then why would anyone ever—"

"Ingest it?"

I nodded, slightly aggravated that he hadn't let me finish my question, but I was too interested in his answer to say anything.

"Well, there's no question that Strengthening Solutions remain stable for longer periods of time when a pinch of dragon's egg powder is included in the brewing process. It's also an excellent stabilizer for stimulant infusions using coca leaves and, in trace amounts, the side effects are controllable."

I was suddenly cold and wrapped my arms around myself. "What are the long-term effects of its use?"

He narrowed his eyes at me, taking in my stance. "You haven't been using it, have you?"

"No!" My denial was vehement. "But I might know someone who has."

"Effects of long-term use are consistently lethal. If you know someone who's not only been able to acquire a Chinese Fireball's egg, but has used it for longer than a year, then you'd better prepare for their funeral, little Gryff."

"That's… that's… oh, Merlin," I whispered.

"Hermione?"

"What?" He never called me by my first name, and I looked at his concerned expression. "Oh, yes, I'm fine. I appreciate the information, Flinty. Thank you."

I left his office, increasingly alarmed regarding Snape's possible… probable fate.

All my brain could think about was Snape's condition as I had seen him earlier: his bloodshot eyes, his too-thin body, and his shaking hand clutching that paper-wrapped package.

It was none of my business.

Was it?

Snape had never liked me, especially as I was Harry's friend. But he had saved my life as both child and woman, and I had never even given his welfare a second or third thought. I was so consumed by my own grief, and then by the building of a life from the ashes of the war to care what happened to him.

Unexpectedly, fiercely, I didn't want Snape to die.

I began to laugh. I didn't even know anything about him: where he lived, how he lived, whether he was married, or even if he had children. Maybe I was leaping to conclusions with insufficient evidence. Sloppy scholarship, I know.

Nevertheless, my instincts told me he was in trouble and had nowhere to turn.

Somehow, I ended up in the Hall of Prophesy. Its wall sconces burned blue; thousands of glass orbs waiting for fruition or destruction gave off a crystalline shine to the cold, cavernous room. I walked swiftly to row ninety-seven, eyed its repaired shelves, and sank to the floor.

My throat tightened and my eyelids prickled. I would have died here if it hadn't been for Snape's warning. Harry had refused to acknowledge his debt to Snape, but sitting in the shadow of those memories, I was able to recognize mine.

The floor was cold and I ignored it, but some time later, I realized wallowing in guilt wasn't going to get me anywhere. I needed to confirm whether Snape had been using the dragon's egg powder, and if so, for how long and at what dosage.

I completely ignored the little voice in my mind telling me that he would not welcome my interference. At the age of sixteen I had knitted four hundred hats for the house-elves of Hogwarts in a futile, Quixote-like effort to free the enslaved creatures. At twenty-five, I might be tilting at a windmill, but this time I had a better horse and an indestructible lance.

First, though, I needed to sort through my memories and attempt to chart Snape's physical symptoms. Swiftly putting thought to action, I stood, brushed off my trousers, and strode down to the tenth floor. It was time to take a dip into the Pensieve again… and again… however many times it would take.

I knew I had seen Snape more than once, and his physical deterioration, or lack thereof, would help me decide whether to get involved or not.

If my suspicions were confirmed, I was going to have a little chat with Mr. Pennyweight about the illegal importation of Class A Non-Tradeable goods.

I set my chin.

Gentle persuasion when dealing with a reluctant source of information, especially in the name of a good cause, wasn't a task for the faint-of-heart.

~o0o~


	2. Research

**Morning Has Broken**

By Bambu

All disclaimers and author's notes may be found in Chapter One.

~o0o~

_Chapter Two: Research_

Forty-six hours later, and without the realization it had been that long, I was thoroughly disheartened and more certain than ever that Severus Snape was in need of assistance. My desk was littered with the fruits of my labors: small vials containing specific memory strands; parchment with notes, scrawled in three colors, detailing the signs of and deterioration due to toxic addiction; several books opened to specific pages; a small sack of trichobezoars; and a flat, paper-wrapped package of charcoal awaiting my final enchantment to activate it. Placed most prominently was my Pensieve.

The Cupboard of Requirement had seen to my personal needs - food when I was hungry, apple juice when I was thirsty - and the marvelous floor-to-ceiling cupboard even transformed into a privy when necessary.

I had added a wakefulness tincture to my espresso, and even though my eyes reddened and watered at several points, I succeeded in isolating the nine instances in which I had seen Snape over the past two years, four of them in the past eight weeks.

It was as bad as I'd feared.

Two years ago, Severus Snape had been thin, sallow-skinned, and acerbic as ever. Along the edge of my desk were now four small bottles containing my memories of seeing him in Slug &amp; Jiggers. However, during none of those sightings had he exhibited the more noticeable characteristics of withdrawal symptoms. I had coincidentally – something my one-time Divination teacher didn't believe in – seen him in the Apothecary before Snape and Boyle had decided to part ways.

My first memory of post-war Snape took place shortly following my acceptance in the Unfathomables; although, it was the last of Snape's visits to Slug &amp; Jiggers which garnered much of my attention. I had been purchasing supplies for the department, and Snape was at the opposite end of the large shop, his tall frame carefully bent over a selection of glistening, green leaves.

Having spent the past thirty-six hours scouring my memories for images of the man, coupled with what I had discovered, it was my guess they were fresh coca leaves.

Just as my memory ended, John Boyle had begun speaking to Snape, and the conversation confirmed my identification of the leaves.

"Severus," Boyle had said, "I have other orders to fill, and I cannot continue to provide you with the quantity you ask. You'll have to find another source or supplement your work with the dried leaves."

Regrettably, I had left the shop before hearing Snape's response and the memory ended. I hadn't paid attention to the interaction then, but now it had far more significant, potentially deadly, meaning. Fresh coca leaves were marginally less addictive than their dried counterparts, and Snape could have used the fresh ingredient for a number of years without compromising his health significantly.

That particular memory was one I had revisited several times, walking next to the figure of my former professor. There were purplish circles under his dark eyes, and he appeared care-worn. His robes were old, but not shabby, and his hair, which had begun to show strands of white, had a sheen to it I didn't remember from before the war. It appeared to have been cut with a Severing Charm; the ends bearing the tell-tale marks of having been melted.

If I had noticed him then, I wouldn't have stopped to say anything. After all, we had never been friends, and, despite any desire I might have once harbored, it was highly unlikely our dynamic would change at that point. Still, after everything I had begun to learn and suspect…

I worried for him.

By the fifth reviewed memory, it was obvious Snape had substituted dried coca leaves in whatever potion he imbibed, and his rapid, physical downward spiral had begun. In that and each subsequent memory, the purplish bruises under Snape's eyes had grown darker, almost black. His robes – always the same set which I suspected were his only ones – appeared increasingly threadbare, and his mannerisms had become manic or depressed with strong paranoiac overtones.

In the more recent Pensieved memories, Snape's hands trembled and he blinked his eyes frequently, as if the light had hurt him. I would have thought it extremely odd that his hair was so sleek and his skin blemish-free, except I had just read that these were side effects of arsenic poisoning.

I walked around him more times than I could count, closer to him that I had ever been except that night in the Shrieking Shack. Time had changed things. I was taller now, an adult. He was a bit over six feet in height, and I was only five-and-a-half feet. The former disparity was now negligible. Strands of hair kept falling into his eyes, and after those thirty-six hours, my fingers had itched to brush them off his face.

In my school years, Harry had always said Snape's eyes were as black as his heart, but now I had been close enough to see that they were black with a stippling of brown.

In our most recent encounters, I was wearing the H.I.P.S. and he had passed me without comment. I never directly noticed him, only seeing his departures peripherally. Notably, in each of our H.I.P.S. brushes, Snape paused within an arm's length of my disguised-self and had drawn a deep breath. I recalled him doing the same thing that morning at Pennyweight's. It was as if he had been scenting the air… or me.

If these incidents weren't enough to spur my unwonted interference, two things further engaged my sympathies: his physical deterioration had shown all the classic symptoms of withdrawal (which were now written in red ink on the parchment to my left), and the expression in his eyes had been haunted.

Folding my arms, I laid my head upon my crossed wrists. The evidence, circumstantial and direct, all pointed to one conclusion. Snape was going to die, and die painfully if someone didn't help him.

Tears stung my tired eyes.

The oddly musty odor from the bezoars was distracting and I pushed the package a little farther from my head, remembering what Mr. Pennyweight had told me when I had returned to his shop. Threatening an inventory audit if he didn't provide me with the information I needed proved expeditious, and he was quite forthcoming. I'm afraid any professional relationship we might have had was completely ruined. Surprisingly, I didn't care.

With prodding, he had told me that on a monthly basis for the past year, Snape purchased the same quantity of bulk items: the seventh year N.E.W.T. potions list, dried coca leaves, three varieties of fresh peppermint, ginger root, and six-to-eight bezoars. Pennyweight had sold Snape Re'em blood twice, and once, almost a year ago, eight grams of powdered Chinese Fireball dragon's egg. The prices Snape had paid for the Re'em blood and dragon's egg powder were high enough to keep Pennyweight in business for more than six months.

However this time, Snape had been waiting for two months for another order of powdered dragon's egg. The morning I saw him at the Knockturn Alley Apothecary, he had just learned the shipment was seized in Xian, China. There was no alternate source of supply.

The reason Pennyweight had been unable to fill my order for bezoars was that Snape had purchased the last twenty. It stood to reason the package Snape had been clutching in his shaking hand represented his final efforts to purge his body of the arsenical toxins. Regrettably, it seemed Aurelius Flint was correct; there was no real cure for arsenikon poisoning in either the Muggle or wizarding world.

Snape was going to die.

And I couldn't stand it. We lost too many good people during the war.

I knew him. I had once admired him.

His supposed betrayal had hurt me deeply. But even after Dumbledore's death, Snape had risked everything to continue to feed the Order of the Phoenix valuable information. Harry, Ron, and I would never have found all the Horcruxes without his help.

I owed him.

There had to be something I could do to help.

My heart hurt and my head felt heavy. Maybe if I rested for a moment.

The next thing I knew, my security spells were being breached.

"_Ça va bien,_ 'ermione?"

It was Gabrielle.

Without moving my head or even opening my eyes, I replied in French, "_Repétè, s'il te plait? Je dormais_."

Gabrielle's voice was a little more insistent, this time. "_Ça va,_ 'ermione?"

Automatically I answered in the affirmative, but realized mid-sentence that this was Gabrielle. My friend and colleague who was supposed to be in isolation during her monthly transformation for forty-eight hours.

I grabbed my wand, and flicked a non-verbal _Finite Incantatem_ at my door.

She entered, carrying a thick roll of parchment.

My fingers absently felt my cheek, where the edge of my desk had left an impression. I must have been sleeping for awhile.

She was kind enough to give me a moment to wake fully.

While my muscles protested my stretching, I inspected my friend. She looked haggard, fragile even. Her Veela heritage was apparent in the thinning and sharpening of her features, and her hair hung in a lackluster drape of white. Gabrielle reminded me painfully of Remus Lupin post-transformation. She was twenty and looked forty.

The nurturing, sympathetic impulses which were an intrinsic part of me Apparated front-and-center. With a swift and sure series of wand-strokes, I transfigured the ladder-back guest chair into a conforming, squashy easy chair.

Gabrielle crossed the room to the chair, her movements were awkward and stiff as if she had the Muggle disease arthritis. As she sank gratefully into the chair, I noticed fresh bite-marks on the wrist of her left hand.

I found myself wondering whether the H.I.P.S. bracelets could offer some relief to her during her post-transformational state. Medicinal applications for the camouflaging bracelets had never occurred to me before. Shuffling through a stack of parchment on my left, I quickly scribbled a reminder to myself.

"'Elle, would you consider…"

"Ron couldn't reach you…"

We shared a tired smile for having spoken at the same time, and I motioned for her to continue.

"Ron 'as been trying to reach you since yesterday, but access was denied."

I blinked at her owlishly. "What day is it?"

Before she could answer, my opened Cupboard of Requirement presented me with two things: the Rowan box containing my experimental bracelets, and a luminous projection of the date and time. It had been fifty-five hours since I last saw Gabrielle.

"I'll Floo Ron presently. I'm sorry he had to trouble you so soon."

She blushed. Instead of enhancing her beauty, it gave her exhausted, young/old face a feverish cast. "Eet was no trouble. Ron eez usually the first person to see me after a transformation."

I know my face reflected my shock, and I bit my tongue to keep from saying or asking anything.

Her smile was knowing, but she answered my unvoiced question anyway. "'e insists, and I admit 'e's very reassuring."

I nodded my head. Ron could be very comforting at times. "I'm glad you let him, 'Elle."

Pushing myself up from my chair, my muscles protested and I groaned while I reached for my pot of Floo powder.

"'e's not there," Gabrielle said. "'e's been sent on assignment again… to Bruxelles. That's why I brought these."

With a glad little cry, I practically snatched the roll of parchment from her hands, and fumbled in its unrolling. Ron had really come through for me, and I knew he must have called in a very big favor. He had provided me with the entire Wizengamot transcript of Snape's trial, and all subsequent, relevant information about the object of my current obsession.

I scanned the two-paged abstract and was perusing the fourth page of Snape's sentence, when Gabrielle giggled. Heat suffused my face. I had forgotten she was there.

She pushed up from the conjured chair. "I will leave you to your research, but, 'ermione, get some real rest before you dive into the next phase. I know you. You will think more clearly after you sleep and bathe."

As she began to make her way to my door, normally two steps, but today it was four, I made a snap decision. "'Elle, would you be willing to try something? It might make you feel better."

One delicate hand pressed flat against the ebony panel of my door; it was trembling, and I could see how much the transformation had taken out of her. "I will try whatever you suggest."

She returned to her seat. And I was suddenly reminded how it felt to manipulate other people's lives. When I was younger, I found myself in the position to make those sorts of decisions. I had forgotten how heavily the responsibility weighed upon one's soul. "There's no guarantee. I'm just curious."

I snatched the Rowan box, and retrieved the platinum and gold bracelets. Gabrielle gasped when she saw them.

"No, no, 'Elle, it's not silver! It's platinum." Suddenly, the idea didn't seem quite so clever.

It seemed my second thoughts were easily readable because she responded to my unspoken hesitation. "I 'ave become, how do you say _méfiante_? But, I trust you."

"I think you mean cautious. Gabrielle, I won't betray your trust." Our eyes met, brown to pale blue, and I knew that we had crossed a new threshold in our friendship.

Emboldened, I settled the bracelets around her slender wrists, twisting the platinum and gold to recognize and remember her base cellular structure. It took several minutes to filter out the werewolf taint in her altered genetic structure. While I tinkered, my friend leaned her head back and closed her eyes, her platinum hair spilling over the edge of the chair and trailing on the smooth floor, a contrast of black and white.

A low-level hum told me that the H.I.P.S. recognized her. Picking up the length of holly which rarely left my side, I tapped the end of my wand on each bracelet and sub-vocalized, _Gabrielle Superior_.

Subtly, so subtly it wasn't readily apparent, Gabrielle's appearance altered. Her face filled out to its normal proportions, and her hair seemed to gleam with its usual luster, but those observations could easily be wishful thinking, and I refrained from counting my intuitive leap of faith a success. Still, I couldn't stop the academic part of my brain from formulating a hypothesis.

Then, when Gabrielle lifted her head to look at me, I sucked in my breath. She was practically glowing with good health. Her eyes sparkled and the movement of her neck was sinuous and graceful. She rose from the chair as easily as if she had never known a moment's pain.

Her smile was dazzling. "'Ermione! What 'ave you done? _C'est mervellieux! Incroyable_!" Then Gabrielle burst into tears and threw herself into my arms.

I held her and calmed her, even as my mind was hundreds of miles away in a grotty row house in which lived a terribly ill wizard.

When she took a step back, her eyes sparkled. "Whatever you 'ave done, eet ees a miracle."

I smiled, and felt horribly cruel because I was going to take her comfort away.

"'Elle—" I began, but couldn't meet her eyes, "—I can't give them to you. You shouldn't even know about them. At this stage, they're an experimental prototype."

"_Je comprends._"

I knew she did, and I hated to take away her succor. I caved. "Five more minutes."

She smiled and leaned back in the chair with relieved boneless grace.

Finally, and with great reluctance, Gabrielle removed the bracelets from her wrists. The effect was disconcerting. She seemed to age before my eyes, and even though I have lived in the wizarding world for more than half my life, it shocked me. "I promise," I said, and my voice seemed to ring in my office, "I will make you a pair as soon as I can safely do so."

She haltingly made her way to the door. "I will be your lab Jarvey if you wish, 'Ermione. Any relief would be welcome."

We looked at one another for a long moment. Then she slipped into the hallway and the ebony door swung shut behind her.

My mind was too tired to comprehend the implications and broader ramifications of what had just occurred, and I stared at the opaque door for a long time.

I then turned my attention to Ron's handiwork. Opening the scrolls Gabrielle had delivered I scanned the lengthy parchment, comprehending barely half the information contained therein.

Gabrielle was right. My body desperately needed a few hours of undisturbed sleep, but my mind craved answers. And there were decisions to make. I swayed on my feet, effectively putting an end to my dithering. With a quick, Tonksian spell, I jabbed my wand and said, "_Pack_!"

Instantly, my scattered notes, the two paper-wrapped packages, and my H.I.P.S. bracelets formed a neat little pile on the edge of my desk, while the references I had used flew to their places in the rapidly spinning book nook. I added the roll of parchment Gabrielle had brought to the pile of things I would take with me. Grabbing my outer robes, which were far less wrinkled that my skirt and blouse, I pulled a mitten from one of my pockets and transfigured it into a replica of my student book bag before slipping my neat little pile into its roomy depths.

I remembered to palm the door shut on my way out.

There was no one to encounter in the Ministry's halls, but that wasn't a surprise. The illuminated clock in my Cupboard of Requirement had read three-twenty a.m. My eyes were gritty and every bone in my body ached, and as was the case every time I pushed myself to the limits, my scars hurt. Normally, I didn't notice them, but my right leg was stiff as I passed through the Atrium and made my way to the Floo network. I was too tired to Apparate, and there was no line of waiting witches and wizards at this time of night.

Tossing the grainy powder into the only fireplace with a fire, I said, "Hermione Granger's Library," before stepping into the flames.

The trip was disorienting, and I was so tired I practically fell into my guest-room-cum-library. I tripped into the reading chair in front of the fireplace and braced myself on its plush arm before dumping my things onto the seat and obscuring the patterned fabric my mother had chosen for me on my seventeenth birthday. Of course, I hadn't seen it until after Dumbledore's death, but I kept the chair because it reminded me of my mum, and the memory no longer brought me pain.

Waving my wand toward the hall, I heard the sounds of the tub being filled.

Discarding clothing along the way, I was nude before I reached the bathroom. The steaming, fragrant water enticed me, and only then did I realize that I smelled dreadful. The wall sconce flared to life when I stepped into the small, pale blue bathroom, and I was very glad I didn't have a magical mirror when I looked at myself in the reflective surface. Dark circles punctuated my red-rimmed eyes, and my usually bouncy hair hung around my face in a frizz.

Placing my wand on the narrow strip of shelving next to the tub, I stepped into the hot water and sighed with relief. The ache in my right leg subsided as my fingers massaged the fist-wide scar tissue, a reminder of the final battle. My tap was Charmed to add herbal combinations dependent upon my needs. The distinctive fragrance of Devil's Claw and Horse Chestnut Flowers, both of which eased residual curse symptoms, permeated the air. There was also chamomile, and something else I was too tired to identify.

Arching backwards, I dunked my head in the hot water before lathering and rinsing. Clean hair made always me feel better. Next, I scrubbed my body with absent-minded efficiency, pausing over three, fading finger-shaped bruises on my bicep, a remnant of Snape's touch.

If these had been other circumstances, I might have indulged in a little tension-relief. As it was however, I simply drained and refilled the tub, soaking my aching muscles in the clear, fragrant water. Then, with my head resting against the porcelain and my eyes idly tracking the steam rising from the tub, I thought about Severus Snape.

The terms of his sentence weren't as stringent as some and more restrictive than others. Draco Malfoy for example, had survived the war, but had been banished from the wizarding world. I knew he had converted some of his funds into good British pounds, shillings, and pence before he left. Snape, on the other hand, was required to remain in Britain submitting to bi-annual interviews for the next five years. By the time the ex-spy turned fifty, he would be a free man.

The cynical part of my brain interjected the thought, _if he lived to see fifty_.

A catalogue of information unscrolled across my mind: Severus Snape lived at number seven, Clotho Lane, at the corner of Spinner's End; he was self-employed as a local potions brewer, which explained his standard purchases at the Apothecaries; he was aloof and a loner, both of these comments had been annotated in the Auror reports; he was unmarried and had few, if any, friends.

I knew from experience Snape was a keen observer, hence his effectiveness as a spy. He was also analytical and held very high standards. I didn't know whether he was spiritually inclined, or if he feared not living up to the high standards he imposed on others.

The heat seeping into my muscles had relaxed me, and before realizing the danger of doing so, I had fallen asleep. My last conscious thought was that Valerian had been the unknown infusion in the water.

As I slept, I dreamt.

_A werewolf changed into a man… into Remus Lupin as I had first known him. He was slender and tired looking, but he was alive. He looked in my direction and began to speak. I thought it was me he was speaking to, but then I realized he was speaking past me, and I turned into the misty white haze of my dreamscape border. Moving slowly through the mist was a wizard with long red hair and a fang earring dangling from one ear. The hideous facial scars which Fenrir Greyback had given him were gone, and Bill Weasley smiled at Remus, passing me as if it was I who was the dream and not they._

_I attempted to walk toward them, but my body drifted rather than moved purposefully. At least, I was able to get closer. After a time, I became aware of other body forms in the haze, but none became corporeal or recognizable. Finally, Remus and Bill appeared to notice my presence. _

_When I thought they might speak to me, Remus said, 'No, Gabrielle, you are to stay."_

_I looked for her, but Gabrielle wasn't there._

"_Remus—" I called out. It was an utterly futile attempt to draw his attention._

_Next to Remus, Bill nodded his head earnestly. He spoke. "Stay for Ron, ma petite soeur. He loves you, and you deserve some happiness."_

_Then, abruptly, in that surreal way dreams sometimes unfold, I found myself in a small, dimly lit room, with clerestory windows near the ceiling. I knew this room. It was the potions classroom from my schooldays._

_Swirling mists of white undulated over my feet, obscuring the floor. I turned at the sound of liquid bubbling. There within arms' length was a stone workbench, and suspended above a magical flame was a small number two cauldron. Steam rose from its depths. Standing behind the cauldron was Severus Snape, head bent over the cauldron. He was dressed in his intimidating teaching regalia, and his black hair hung like curtains on either side of his face, obscuring his features, except his nose._

_I ventured a step closer and he looked directly at me. His black eyes were snapping with the force of his personality._

"_Valerian and Chamomile won't help me, girl. Where's the dragon's egg powder?" Suddenly, his wand was in his hand and he began to stir the potion with it._

"_But, Professor, that's a Class A Non-Tradeable item. You can't use it."_

"_I didn't expect you to have the courage to do what's necessary. Don't you think I know it's an illegal item?" He grew enraged and his hands began to shake. His once-pristine attire seemed to dissolve, revealing the shabbier robes I had seen him wearing in Knockturn Alley, only far worse. I could see his elbows peeking through the threadbare cloth._

_I stepped closer. "This isn't the way. I can help. I know I can."_

"_What I need can't be found in a book." His eyes dulled and his hair grew sleek and shiny as he spoke. He added a pinch of reddish powder to the potion and golden sparks shot three or four inches into the air._

_Fascinated, I drew closer, peering over the lip of the cauldron. It was filled with a dark, viscous fluid. Small flecks of gold and crimson rose to the black surface, swirling as the liquid cooked. Nausea clamped my stomach as I recognized the Re'em blood I had seen in Pennyweight's._

_A silver ladle dipped into the boiling potion, and Snape lifted it to his mouth as if to drink. His face looked cadaverous. _

_I gasped. "No! You can't drink this, Professor. It will kill you."_

_The ladle shook in his hand. He looked at me through red-rimmed eyes, and, for once, his expression was naked. "I'm already dead, Miss Granger."_

_He drank the potion before I could knock the ladle from his hands. I seemed to move as if through sticky marshmallow fluff. Still, I stepped toward him, through the space which had previously held the worktable._

_I watched him begin to fold in upon himself. I tried to pull him toward me, but he was as insubstantial as one of Sybill Trelawney's crystal ball readings. "No! No, Professor Snape. Don't die!"_

_Tears tracked down my face and I stifled a sob._

_He raised his head._

_My heart clenched at the expression in his eyes. _

"_Why would you care?" he asked._

I jerked myself awake.

The water in the tub was cold, and I was crying.

Immediately, I pulled the plug, and wiped my tears. There was no telling how long I had been asleep, but my fingers and the bottom of my feet were shriveled. I sighed in relief that I hadn't drowned.

The gleaming length of holly felt strange in my wrinkled hand, and I cast a Warming Charm on the towel before wrapping it around me. One quick twist of my wrist and my hair was dry, then I tucked my wand behind my ear, reminiscent of the late Luna Lovegood.

With a sense of urgency, I passed through the short hall to my bedroom and quickly dressed, choosing jeans and a Celestina Warbeck t-shirt. Only later would I realize that the image on the back of the shirt was from her biggest selling hit, _A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love_. I covered my Muggle clothes with standard day robes, and pulled on trainers. Next, I swiftly gathered a few extra things which I would take to Spinner's End, summoned my book bag, and stuffed them into its depths.

I wasn't waiting any longer to check on Snape.

Stopping in my kitchen to fix a quick snack, I made toast and a triple espresso while adding some essential staples to my magically expanding satchel. Depending on his mental and physical state, it was unlikely Snape had been eating properly and I wanted to be prepared.

I ate quickly, leaning against the granite counter Ron thought terribly Muggle, and stared at my distorted reflection in the window box over my old-fashioned sink. After shoving the last bite of toast in my mouth, I brushed crumbs off my shirt, and then, with a non-verbal spell and a jab of my wand, tidied up.

The small, heavily warded cabinet nestled between floor-to-ceiling bookcases along one wall of my library was my next destination. The cabinet held a number of items I would need. A single _Finite Incantatem_ and two _Reversos_ later, the doors popped open for me to peruse the bounty contained on its shelves.

In addition to four types of raw ingredients, I chose two small vials containing essence of rue. A cleansing tincture, it prevented latent side effects of ingested toxins. I had never been without it since Ron was poisoned in place of Albus Dumbledore. Snape had probably tried everything at his disposal, but I remained hopeful. With one final glance, I closed and warded the cabinet.

From the chair where I had dumped my bag and materials upon my earlier arrival, I selected several items to add to my bag. Once everything was packed the expansion and weight-reduction charms would be stressed to their maximum.

I looked around my library and wished for more time to spend at home. Giving the room a last wistful look, I glanced toward my bedroom before turning my back and exiting the flat.

The Apparition point was in the small kitchen garden at the back of the renovated manor house I shared with eight other tenants. Once in place, I focused on my destination, and fueled by determination I vanished from Canterbury's chill pre-dawn.

A barely audible _pop_ heralded my arrival at the safest Apparition point near Snape's home. I found my footing at the crest of a bank, and my nose wrinkled at the smell an adjacent waterway. It was the slightly stagnant odor of a refuse-strewn backwater. In the distance, a dog barked; it sounded like the distinctive yelp of a bloodhound

Hitching my bag more securely on my shoulder, I hiked along the overgrown verge until I found a broken point in the old railings. Before I crossed the street, I looked up the pale gray of an early morning sky. Even in the faint light, I could see tufts of weeds fighting their way between the cobblestones. Just ahead were rows upon rows of dilapidated brick houses, packed like matchsticks in a box. Here and there glimmers of light shown through curtains as women and men began the cycle of yet another day's struggle to find work in what was clearly a depressed neighborhood.

In the background, rising above the houses, was the immense chimney of an abandoned mill. It was easy to forget Snape's father had been a Muggle, but here in this forgotten corner of Britain, that realization gave me a deeper understanding of the man I was about to intrude upon.

Passing beneath a broken streetlight, my trainers made the acquaintance of an empty bottle, its clinking sound loud in the early morning. Nearby another dog barked and I ventured deeper into the maze of streets lined with mostly deserted houses.

After zigzagging for several blocks, I found Spinner's End and turned left. At the corner of Clotho Lane and Spinner's End, the mill's chimney loomed larger. Most of the houses at this end of the street were boarded up. Nearing the last house, magic tingled upon my skin. Early warning charms perhaps.

A low, flickering light peeked through drawn curtains on the bottom floor of the two-story house. I stepped carefully along the brick path leading to the door, and hesitated for a moment before knocking.

My nerves had at last decided to announce themselves, and my stomach knotted with anxiety as I questioned my reasons for being there. It reminded me of when Harry had taken me on his Firebolt to show me how fun a Wronski Feint was. When the flight was over, I had dismounted and kissed the grassy field before promptly throwing up. Harry had never been able to coax me into riding with him again. Now, of course, I would never have the chance. Quite suddenly, I missed my first, best and dearest friend, and fervently wished he were beside me to hold my hair while I purged my fright.

Before I could reconsider, I knocked on the front door. How would Snape greet me? Would he even recognize me?

I waited.

No one came to answer the door.

I knocked again; this time, a little longer and a little harder.

My nerves hummed and my hands shook.

After five minutes, I decided to see if there was another door. I walked along Clotho Lane to the mews running behind the houses of Spinner's End. Each house had a small, walled-in garden behind it, and in the growing daylight, I found Snape's back gate. It was off the latch. Taking that as a good sign, I stepped into a garden which would have given Neville Longbottom, had he lived, an orgasm. There were plants everywhere. A small group of terra cotta pots contained kitchen herbs, but the remainder of the plants was magical in origin and most were used in potions.

I followed the neat bricked path to the back door. It was wide open.

Well.

Never let it be said I turned down such an invitation.

I took a step closer and peered into the small kitchen where dishes piled on counter tops and a small breakfast nook nestled in one corner. The narrow window to the right of the door gave additional light to the room, revealing that it had once been painted in bright oranges and yellows. It reminded me of my great aunt's house, except this kitchen needed a thorough cleaning.

It was empty.

Uncertain what to expect, I drew my wand and stepped into Snape's home.

A soft menacing voice filled the still room. "Ten points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger, for being out after curfew."

I gasped and turned, meeting Snape's bloodshot, deeply shadowed eyes. He stared at me, then in one of the more melodramatic moments of my life, the bloody man swooned.

He crumpled into a heap on the dirty linoleum floor.

For a wildly inappropriate fraction of a second, I bit back a laugh at the absurd Mills &amp; Boon scenario. Equally swiftly, I abandoned mirth for the very real emergency lying on the floor. I thought, _Mobilicorpus_, flicked my wand and Snape's body rose into the air.

Towing him through the kitchen toward the closed door which I surmised led to the rest of the house, we passed through a narrow butler's pantry, and then into what was a small sitting room. There was a candle-filled lamp hanging from the ceiling, with only four of its candles lit. The room was sparsely furnished; an armchair and threadbare sofa positioned behind a spindly table in front of a small unlit fireplace.

My throat tightened as I gently lowered Snape's skeletal frame to the sofa. I looked around briefly, taking stock of my surroundings. There were wall-to-wall bookcases, which had clearly been filled at one point, but now showed gaps among the shelves. I wondered how long he had been pawning his books for income.

The condition of his home frankly shocked me, and I would say cleaning hadn't been a priority for some time. Empty potions vials and other paraphernalia littered the room; two or three books were turned face-down upon the spindly table. Stains of unknown origin gleamed on the wood's surface. Despite the room's need for a good scouring charm, I had more pressing matters to consider.

I grabbed one of the empty potions vials, transfiguring it into a pillow before raising Snape's head. I was shocked by the silken texture of his hair even if it was consistent with arsenic poisoning. I gently lowered his head to the pillow. His brow glistened with sweat and his body odor was sour. I shook my head at his state, and pressed my fingers against the pulse point under his jaw. His heart beat too swiftly and he was too hot, but he seemed to have fallen into a restless sleep.

He reminded me of strongly of Gabrielle, looking older than his years. He was in his mid-forties, but looked ninety.

I returned to the kitchen.

Early morning light filtered through the dingy windows. I wasted a few moments to levitate all the dirty dishes into the sink, and cast _Scourgify_ on the windows, the table top, and the counters. Taking more precious time, I set the dishes to wash before rummaging through the Charm-cooled refrigerator. There was nothing remotely edible to be found, and one shelf was filled with strange ingredients Snape kept on hand for potion brewing. I cast a Bubble-Head Charm on myself and disposed of the noxious, rotting food.

I quickly put my bag on the kitchen table, a shaft of light spearing through the newly clean window. It seemed as if time and misery had leached any cheer that had once been in the house. I didn't understand how anyone could have lived there without becoming heartily depressed.

I glanced toward the sitting room. Enough said.

Several of the dishes and glasses were clean by this point, and I quickly unpacked my bag, putting the eggs and chops into the refrigerator. I then pulled out the cottage loaf, onions, a tomato and two bananas, placing them on the table, before removing the package of charcoal from the bottom of my bag.

I flicked and jabbed my wand over the bag of charcoal, activating it and limiting its target to only the undigested toxins in his stomach. I knew that if left undirected, the charcoal would interfere with any other intervention I might use. I silently thanked Aurelius Flint for the loan of two books on antidotes.

Snatching a now-clean glass, I put three grams of magically activated charcoal in it, and pointing my wand, said, "_Aguamenti!_" A clear stream of water filled the glass, the charcoal swirling in an inky black cloud.

Sometimes, Muggle remedies worked hand-in-hand with magical ones.

I heard Snape cry out from the sitting room, and I practically ran to his side, shoving the small table out of the way.

He was convulsing.

How the glass of magically activated charcoal made it safely onto the table I'll never know, but I dropped to my knees to hold Snape. He was so thin, and shaking so strongly, it frightened me. He moaned in pain, his words unintelligible. It was impossible to tell whether he was conscious or not.

I had seen death too many times to want to see it again. I wanted to ignore the symptoms of an advanced-stage toxic withdrawal, but his hallucination in the kitchen had already told me I was probably fighting a losing battle.

However, I had once been a Gryffindor and I was still a bossy know-it-all. I would be damned if I gave up on Snape without a fight.

I held him until the convulsions subsided to twitches and moans.

"It's all right. It's all right. I'm here."

He didn't struggle, and his reddened, puffy eyes were mostly shut.

I thought he was semi-aware of his surroundings, and pressed the glass to his parched lips. Snape drank, grimacing at the taste. He automatically chewed the crunchy bits while I breathed a sigh of relief. It was a long way from a cure, but the magically activated charcoal would absorb some of the toxins in his digestive tract.

"Have you forgiven me yet, Lily?" One long-fingered hand touched my face gently.

Words failed me.

It was obvious to me who he thought, or hoped, I was.

I had put the clues together in what should have been my seventh year at school. Slughorn's drooling praise for Lily Evans' talents, and the half-blood Prince's crafty inventiveness had married with what Harry saw in Snape's Pensieve. Snape had been a brilliant, lonely, bookish boy, and it seemed perfectly logical that a vibrant, beautiful girl had befriended him.

Snape's hand reached around my neck, his fingers threading through my chin-length hair. His breath was stale and I involuntarily wrinkled my nose. He pulled me closer to him, and the tone of his voice grew hard and filled with self-loathing. "Of course, you haven't. I killed you. I killed your precious Potter, and that baby… your baby. I promise you, I will avenge your death."

Before I could make up a soothing lie, his eyes rolled back in his head and he lapsed back into unconsciousness.

Remembering it was Snape's half-heard information that led Voldemort to choose James and Lily Potter to persecute, and Voldemort had offered to trade Lily Potter's life for that of her child.

As I returned to the kitchen to find a pot in which to make a potion, I realized Snape was the reason Voldemort had made the offer to Lily. Her blood status had never mattered to Voldemort. He was like Horace Slughorn in that respect, and separately, an utter hypocrite. Were he not already dead, I would've wanted to kill him all over again.

Rustling around in Snape's kitchen, I found an old set of cookware, some of which contained the skeletal remains of insects and had obviously been unused for a long time. I bit my lip and rolled up my metaphorical sleeves.

Pulling out a pot and a fry pan, I set them both on the hob. Once again, I cast _Aguamenti_, filling the pot half-full. I pulled out my package of trichobezoars, and separated three of the ruminant hairballs from the rest. Dropping the stone-like hairballs into the water, I also added red clover, peppermint, and eight drops of the essence of rue. A quick swish of my wand lit a small magical fire under the pot. Shortly, the mixture would come to a gentle simmer.

With the potion well in hand, I turned my attention to a meal for Snape. Even if I had to spoon feed him, he was getting a bit of an onion scramble down his throat. According to one of Flinty's books, the sulfur content of the eggs and onions would help neutralize any arsenical compound it encountered, or the charcoal had missed. Snape's bloodstream could use all the help it could get. There was no butter in his fridge, but I found a small bottle of Vermouth in the poorly stocked pantry, and used that to sauté the onions. I added the eggs and managed a credible, small meal for Snape.

I wouldn't dare feed him too much, too quickly.

By the time the eggs were done, the potion was simmering gently. I circled my wand, widdershins, three, six, nine times before adding the next ingredient. It was juiced Mandrake rhizomes. They were something Meg Croaker had experimented with for a couple of years. No one outside of the department knew about her research. I had helped cultivate the first three crops, for which she'd given me several containers of the juice in recompense. I dribbled seven drops of the juice into the slurry liquid. After the seventh drop, the liquid turned pale scarlet.

Exactly the shade it was supposed to be.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I had modified an existing antidote, and hoped it would prove life-saving. Literally.

The Seven Percent Solution, as I had named it rather facetiously, needed to sit for nine minutes to reach efficacy.

That would be sufficient time to feed Snape. I entered the sitting room carrying his small meal only to discover that he wasn't there.

I almost panicked.

The sound of breaking glass and muffled shouting drew my attention, but a quick search for another entrance to the sitting room proved fruitless. I opened the front door, but didn't linger - Snape's cursing was coming from inside the house.

Every wall in the sitting room was lined with bookcases, and even though my bibliophilic heart itched to give his shelves a once over, my pressing concern for Snape had me raising my wand, pointing it at the shelves to my right, and murmuring a spell Gabrielle had taught me, "_Révélant brume_."

Instantly, radiant golden mist erupted from the tip of my wand and snuggled against the bookshelves like clingfilm. I watched for the telltale signs indicating a passage, and sure enough, approximately ten feet from me, the mist was sucked through the slender openings carved into a bookcase, leaving a perfectly rectangular, negative outline of a door.

I crossed to that bookcase and pressed. The hanging case swung forward, and using my fingers, I pulled it the rest of the way open to reveal a narrow staircase leading to the first floor.

Having already pushed my way into his house, I didn't hesitate at the foot of the stairs.

Finding him was quite easy.

I followed the noise, and discovered his potions lab; once a functional workroom, but now a deplorable mess. The room was dimly lit by two windows – clearly Charmed to filter light - and two of the walls were lined shelves housing glass jars, one wall of shelves held a variety of potions and the other ingredients, both dried and suspended in variegated liquids.

It was the potions workbench which caught my eye. It was in the center of the smallish room, and most of the paraphernalia it held had been broken or swept to the side, leaving a considerable amount of broken glass and spilled potion on the hardwood flooring.

I was appalled that a brewer of Snape's skill would be so foolhardy. I couldn't tell from where I stood what the lumpy mess was, but if there had been more than one type of potion in the bottles he dashed to the floor, they could become caustic or volatile.

Sorting my list of priorities, I decided to sort the mess before dealing with the wizard. His upper body was slumped across the potions table, and he was shivering.

"_Evanesco_," I said quietly. Broken pieces of glass and the ruined potions evaporated.

Snape's head snapped around at the sound of my spell. Even in his dysfunctional state, he was breathtakingly fast on the draw. Between one beat of my heart and the next, he stood an arms' length in front of me with his wand aimed between my eyes. "Come to gloat, Granger?"

"What? Why would you think that?" Relieved that he knew who I was, I dropped my wand arm, but didn't sheathe the length of holly which had served me so well and for so long.

His hands started to shake and he gripped his ebony wand until his knuckles were white. "Gryffinders always come to gloat over their defeated opponents."

"No! They wouldn't. I—"

He interrupted me. "Cormack McLaggen. Demelza Robins. Jack Sloper. Katie Bell. Lee Jordan. Dennis Creevey. They have all paid me a visit over the years. Mr. Jordan saw fit to spit on me."

I took an involuntary step back, my free hand flying to my mouth. He had just named the only living Gryffindors he had ever taught, other than Ron and me. "You don't understand." I shook my head. "I would never ridicule you. I only wanted to help."

He took an intimidating step closer, but I refused to back up. I recognized the cold glint in his eyes; it was how he had looked at me in school. But during the height of the war, I had thought we were past some of that ingrained prejudice. Unaccountably, my feelings were hurt that we hadn't.

"Never? You never called me a greasy git, an overgrown bat, a vampire… a murderer?" His voice dropped to a whisper on the last word.

I shook my head again, my curly hair bouncing around my jaw line. How had he reduced me to a stammering schoolgirl in a few short sentences? It made me angry to revert so easily into our teacher/student dynamic. "No! You know I never called you names. Stop evading the issue. I came because I know you're ill. I want to help you." 

"I don't need help from a little girl." He spun, nearly knocking into me as he lurched toward the worktable. It seemed his anger had used up whatever benefits the activated charcoal had given him.

I jerked my wand and sub-vocalized, "_Mobiliseat!_"

A three-legged stool skidded across the floor to his side. Without even a glance in my direction, Snape dropped onto its seat, and I retreated downstairs.

I quickly decanted the completed solution, measuring an appropriate dose into another clean glass. On my way back through the sitting room, I grabbed the plate of egg scramble, cast a quick Warming Charm on the food, and climbed the stairs.

The second I entered the potions lab, Snape snarled, "Not leaving yet? Let me speed you on your way." He raised his wand, his motion awkward and jerky.

I considered dropping the things in my hand and going for my wand; instead, I gritted my teeth and crossed the room. "I'm not here to hurt you, Profe… er… Mr. Snape."

His eyes focused on the plate of eggs and a sneer pulled at his lips. "Eggs and onions. Well, well, well. You do live up to your reputation as a know-it-all, Granger."

Ignoring him, I placed the plate on the table in front of him. The Seven Percent Solution remained in my other hand. "Since you know what it is, please eat it."

Instead he swept the plate off the table in one violent motion, and stood up, knocking the stool over. "NO! I couldn't stomach another bite of eggs as long as I live – which shouldn't be more than another day."

"But they'll ease your symptoms."

He stepped toward me, utterly furious.

In that instant, I remembered volatility was one of the signs of withdrawal.

"No!" he shouted. "Nothing will help, you stupid girl. Don't you think I've tried? Don't you think I've eaten eggs and onions to offset the arsenic for years? I could have supported the entire Scottish poultry industry over the last decade." He slumped and would have fallen if I hadn't righted the stool. With a voice weary beyond measure, he muttered, "Go away, Granger. You've had your fun. You can tell all your little friends that you tried to save the Death Eater. Go home to Weasley."

"I'm not with Ron." Why that was important to anchor in his mind I really couldn't say, but my mind had been drawing conclusions it didn't like. "You said a decade. You've been taking powdered Chinese Fireball eggs for _ten years_?" My voice shrilled the last two words as the enormity of his sacrifice hit me like an Impediment Jinx.

Swaying at the realization, I hastily put the Seven Percent Solution on the worktable, and steadied myself against its solid presence. "You were doing this when I was at school? My god! You began doing this after the—"

"Triwizard Tournament. I would award you house points if they mattered." He nodded his head in my direction. "For all of that, you are the only one to figure it out. Dumbledore never knew. He just thought I liked an onion scramble."

I edged closer to him. "Why did you continue to take the potion after the war? You knew it was addictive, that it was toxic!"

His eyes sought mine; they were like black holes sucking all existing light from their surroundings. "Of course I knew it was poisonous… that it would kill me. I never expected to survive. Now go away and leave me in peace. There is no antidote."

My chin quivered, but I clenched my teeth until it stopped. Then I said, "No."

"No?"

"I'm not leaving, unless there's someone else who will come, someone you want me to call." I waited for him to answer. He said nothing. "I thought not. Now, I have something which might make a difference."

He made an oddly negative sound in this throat. I braced myself for a scathing diatribe, but he was suddenly wracked with a seizure and collapsed off the stool.

"No!" I quickly cast a non-verbal Cushioning Charm on the floor.

Snape spasmed uncontrollably. His body attempted to purge itself as he retched and eliminated. The stench almost made me gag. Abstractly, I knew these were side effects of the magically enhanced charcoal. The reality was far more immediate and distressing. I held Snape's head so he wouldn't choke, and mentally whispered thanks that he was unconscious to whatever Fates might be paying attention.

I flicked my wand. "_Evanesco_!"

Bile and other noxious bodily effluvia disappeared from Snape's person, his clothing, and the floor. I cast an Air Freshening Charm on the room, and carefully swabbed his mouth with a peppermint leaf before searching for his bedroom. All the while I ignored the whine of fear in the back of my brain telling me it was no use, that he had been taking arsenic for a decade, and there was no cure. Every cell in his body had been tainted by the toxic substance, and I was amazed afresh at what he had accomplished in spite of his dependency. It was no wonder his deterioration had seemed so rapid to me. It had been encroaching for years.

I found Snape's bedroom, a moderate-sized room with a connecting, closet-sized loo. The floral wallpaper was outdated, but had at one time been pretty and pink. The bed was surprisingly large but unmade. Its brass headboard reminded me of a children's book my mum had read to me when I was little. In a matter of seconds, I had the bed remade, cleansed, and ready for occupation. I changed the color of the duvet to something more suitable than faded cabbage roses.

Next came searching for clean clothing. Opening the closet, I knew I had guessed correctly days before in my office. The robes he had worn to Pennyweight's were his only wizarding attire. Ruthlessly, I went through his bureau, finding pants, undershirt and a pair of very old sweatpants. After a cleansing spell and a slight transfiguration spell on the sweatpants, I ended up with a t-shirt and a pair of draw-string lounging pants. Both were black.

Then I returned to the lab. I was relieved that Snape still breathed.

Immediately, I moved Snape to his bed, where I changed his clothing. Part of me wanted to close my eyes because… well… this was Snape. Part of me was embarrassed to admit that I was curious. When I got his outer clothing off, I just stared at the pale and very lean expanse of skin. There were surprisingly few scars for a man who had been a spy. He still had an unhealthy body odor, but it wasn't as pronounced now that his filthy robes had been removed.

Unable to bring myself to remove his pants, I pulled the soft cotton trousers over his underwear. Putting on his t-shirt was terribly awkward, impossible without discarding my wizarding robes and climbing onto his bed. Hoping he would remain unconscious during the proceedings, I managed to get his arms through the sleeves fairly easily. Yet, when confronted with the faded-but-still-present Dark Mark on his left forearm, I hesitated, but didn't stop myself from ever-so-lightly tracing the lines of Voldemort's brand. My heart raced when I leaned over him to ease his head through the neck of the shirt.

Of course, he would choose that moment to open his eyes.

I froze.

He didn't recognize me.

"My Dryad," he said.

Mint-freshened breath tickled my nostrils. His voice was low and caressing, and I felt the vibrations in the pit of my stomach, and lower.

How could I have forgotten the power of his voice?

"Have you come to ease my suffering?" he asked softly.

"I have."

"I've been waiting a long time for you, Dryad. Please don't make me wait much longer."

He was delirious.

"I won't." I soothed him, and managed to pull the t-shirt into place.

His hand caught mine before I slipped off the bed, and he pulled it to his face, against his cheek. His bloodshot eyes were closed, and his hand was trembling. "You'll sort it out, won't you?"

My mouth was dry and my heart was hammering in my chest. "I will. I'll sort it out."

He turned my hand and kissed its palm. "Say my name," he whispered.

"What?"

"Oh, Dryad, why won't you ever say my name?" His eyelids fluttered.

I didn't want him to see me, to recognize me as Hermione Granger, so I leaned close to his ear and murmured, "Severus."

Almost immediately, his breathing evened out, and I knew he had fallen asleep. I gently tugged my hand from his. My eyes prickled with incipient tears and I brushed the sleek hair off his care-worn brow, leaving him to rest.

~o0o~


	3. Practicum

**Morning Has Broken**

By Bambu

All disclaimers and author's notes may be found in Chapter One.

_Chapter Three: Practicum_

I crossed the hall and entered Snape's lab. After clearing space on the worktop and carefully storing his unused powdered bicorn horn and shredded Boomslang skin, I used the first and most efficient Summoning Charm I had ever learned. _"Accio_ Seven Percent Solution! _Accio_ Hermione's things!"

The glass I had filled earlier with a dose of the Seven Percent Solution shifted toward me across the worktable. In the excitement of Snape's collapse I had forgotten it so the potion spilled as I caught the glass. Setting it down quickly, I prepared for the onslaught of paraphernalia hurtling through the small house.

During the next five minutes, I organized the herbs and medicinal items I had brought, measured another dose of the Solution and scribbled a note to Meg on a piece of enchanted parchment. I advised her that I would be in the field for several days, and then I folded the missive into its own envelope before tapping my wand to it, saying firmly, "_Portus!"_

Within seconds, the letter-cum-Portkey had spun out of sight.

With that crossed off my mental checklist, I snatched one of the bananas from my bag and picked up the potential cure for my impatient patient before crossing the hall to his bedroom. Once there, I conjured a comfortable chair and a small bedside table. I folded my legs beneath me on the chair and I stared at the harsh contours of Snape's face while waiting for him to awaken.

My concern deepened as time passed.

Snape transitioned from peacefully sleeping to nightmare-haunted within a heartbeat. "No! I told you I don't want to do it anymore."

While I vacillated about whether to wake him, he seemed to wait for a response, as if his memory was playing out in his dream.

"You assumed I can cure anything, Albus. You take too much for granted. Your hand's incurable; it's leaching your magic."

Whether this was a nightmare of the conversation Hagrid had overheard in the Forbidden Forest, or a replay of another time Snape and Dumbledore had argued, its effects were equally disturbing. My former professor's breathing grew labored and fresh sweat dotted his forehead.

I made a face as the sour stench of his body odor reached me.

Suddenly he inhaled deeply, angling his head in my direction.

I recognized the mannerism from our encounter the other day and from several other moments in my Pensieved memories. I leaned forward in the chair, sliding my feet to the floor.

Snape opened his eyes, and it was unclear whether he was lucid or not.

I waited a moment, before rising from the chair. When he tracked my movements and didn't snap at me, I picked up the dose of antidote and carried to his side of the mottled black eyes watched my every move.

"Granger."

"Yes."

"What are you doing here?"

"Helping you."

He frowned. "Since when?"

"I've been here long enough to know an egg 'n onion scramble isn't your preferred breakfast."

He made a noise which might have been half a laugh, and then laboriously propped himself against the headboard. His bloodshot eyes never left mine. "You've been experimenting with disguises, haven't you?"

I stared at him, aghast. "How did you know?"

"I might be dying, but I'm not completely mental." He smirked, and then closed his eyes, his breathing quick and uneven; his entire body shuddered.

"Look—" I had been more than patient, "—we can discuss my disguises or anything else you'd like after you drink this." I held out the glass with the translucent blue solution.

"What is it?"

"I call it the Seven Percent Solution."

That time he really did laugh - for a second or two. "I'm not bloody Sherlock Holmes!"

"I don't know. You're brilliant, ruthless, anti-social, impatient with those of lesser intellect, and you dose yourself with cocaine frequently. I thought it was a rather apt name. Now quit stalling and drink. It should help."

His hand froze mid-reach. "_Should_?"

"I used red clover as a systemic detoxifying agent in addition to the peppermint which you use for its antispasmodic and antiseptic properties. There are seven drops of essence of rue as well as Mandrake rhizome extract."

"Are you using me as a lab Jarvey?"

"If you're asking whether I've tried this before, the answer is no. If you're asking whether I think it will work, the answer is I believe it will help you. The final ingredient in the solution is three trichobezoars."

At least he didn't knock the glass from my hand.

His tone of voice was scathing. "Christ, Granger! The only thing in that potion I haven't tried at least a dozen times, every year, is the damned Mandrake juice. I eat fucking bezoars like Dumbledore ate sherbet lemons."

"Yes, but do you eat Niu Huang Chinese bezoars or only standard European goat bezoars?"

I could see him grinding his teeth and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could save his life.

He didn't respond directly, but grabbed the glass of the potion and drank.

I didn't bounce. It was a near thing, but I held my elation in check.

"Now, you need to eat something."

"Can't you leave me alone? You've done your good deed. Go away!"

I walked around the foot of the bed and held out the banana. "Here. The potassium will help balance your electrolytes and the fruit won't negatively interact with the Solution."

"Are you always so bossy?" He snapped the question, but he ate the banana. Slowly.

I watched his every move; for all I knew he might use a Vanishing Spell to dispose of the fruit if I looked away.

When he swallowed the last bite, he glared at me. "Will you go, now?"

"No. I want to know how you knew about my experiments with disguises."

Snape smirked at me.

For a fleeting moment, he was the commanding professor I remembered from years in the classroom. The expression didn't quite have the same effect on me as a woman as it had when I was a little girl. "Well—" I huffed, "—are you going to tell me?"

"Don't get your knickers in a twist."

I crossed my arms and glared at him. If I wasn't so worried, I would have admitted to having fun. He was certainly stimulating to verbally spar with.

At that moment, I understood how he and Minerva McGonagall could have been friends. It had never made sense to me before. Now I understood. McGonagall had been highly intelligent and occasionally sardonic. Snape's biting wit would have appealed to her.

What I didn't understand was how he could have consistently ingested poison when he resumed spying for Dumbledore without anyone noticing? Then again, no one had noticed Voldemort living in the back of poor Quirinus Quirrell's head, or Barty Crouch, Jr. drinking Polyjuice Potion on an hourly basis for nearly a year. In light of those charades, I supposed no one would notice a Potions master brewing Strengthening Solutions with Re'em blood.

My breath caught and another few pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Snape must have drunk the potion initially as a preventative against the Cruciatus Curse, and the coca leaves would have helped with his Occlumency.

How could Dumbledore, who had used Snape as a duelist wields his wand, not have paid attention to the changes in his spy? But then Snape and Harry had been Dumbledore's men through and through. Dumbledore never questioned their loyalty, even if he had argued with Snape about the man's willingness to continue his role.

I swallowed hard. It had been that unwavering, blind loyalty which cost Harry his life. I would be damned if it would cost Snape his.

My expression must have changed, because his eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. I took note of the fact that he had stopped sweating, and hoped the potion was having a positive effect.

He shifted on the bed, and a wary expression crossed his very pale and gaunt face.

"I would appreciate your information, Professor, as I have been working on the disguises for many months. If there's a flaw, I would like to correct it."

"Don't. Call. Me. Professor." He seemed to grind the words through his tightly clenched teeth.

I almost groaned at my stupidity. "Sorry. Honestly, I didn't mean… I don't know really what else to call you. You know I don't mean to offend you."

Fresh beads of sweat broke out across his forehead and I saw his fists clench.

It dawned on me that his reaction wasn't anger, but physical distress. Hastily, I stepped close enough to put my hand against his forehead.

He flinched.

Snape was burning up, and then, abruptly, he lurched toward me gagging.

I didn't get out of the way quickly enough, and he vomited all over himself, me, and the bed. As in his lab I scooted closer, bracing his body against mine, and let him heave until the muscle spasms passed. Fortunately, all the magically activated charcoal had been eliminated in his earlier bout of vomiting. This time, I held his hair off his face, and cooed meaningless words to him as his body purged the last of the potion from his stomach.

I wanted to cry. If Snape couldn't keep anything in his system, then he really was beyond my help.

When he slumped back on the bed, I waved my wand and cleaned us both up.

"Your smell," he whispered in a raspy tone.

"My smell?"

"Yes. You always smelled the same. I could tell it was the same woman. I didn't know it was you, but I knew the blonde, the redhead, and the Amazon were all the same witch."

"Thank you. I hadn't thought about the smell. I altered my features and physical attributes at the cellular level, but I never took smell into account. I really appreciate it."

He nodded weakly, and then his body convulsed in another seizure.

I held onto him this time, and let the tears come. He wouldn't even know.

When his convulsions tapered off, he was once again unconscious. If he could just keep the Seven Percent Solution down, he might have a chance. I brushed the hair from his face, feeling fiercely protective of him.

I imagined he would welcome any relief from his present complaints.

Any relief. Where had I heard that recently? _Any relief would be welcome._

Snape spasmed once, then lapsed into his insensate state.

I slipped my hand beneath his head, raising it enough to slide another pillow beneath it. As I released my grip, his head angled back, revealing his prominent Adam's apple. The movement and position reminded me of Gabrielle in my office, of her head resting against the high back of the cushy chair I had transifgured for her.

It was then I remembered when and where I had heard the words _any relief would be welcome. _Gabrielle. It was Gabrielle speaking to me after she had worn the H.I.P.S. They had eased her pain and discomfort post-transformation.

Gooseflesh broke out on my arms, and the back of my neck prickled.

Thoughts crowded in chaotic patterns in my mind, but my conclusion was unmistakable.

I looked down at Snape again. At the cold sweat beading on his brow, at his hollow cheeks and skeletal physique.

The experiment was worth a try.

If he could keep the potion down while in disguised form, it might save his life. With renewed hope, I slid off the bed and dashed across the hall to get my H.I.P.S.

It was a good thing Severus Snape was so thin, because getting the bracelets over his hands wasn't easy. However, I was nothing if not determined. Once they were in place, I began to twist the gold and platinum bands, dialing the bracelets to a more vital version of the man.

Retrieving my wand from the small bedside table, I touched both bracelets and said, _"Severus Superior!"_

Just as it had with Gabrielle, Snape's features fleshed out, softening his gaunt cheeks. The lines around his eyes plumped, and while I couldn't see the rest of his body, he seemed bigger. He certainly looked younger. Oddly, his body odor was less pronounced, although the underlying masculine fragrance was still his. He looked like my memory of him from school. The deep furrow between his eyebrows remained, but he no longer looked quite so much like an Inferi.

Once he awoke it would be time for another dose of the Seven Percent Solution.

It had been a long four days. I rubbed my tired eyes and dragged my fingers through my hair. Then I refreshed the spell on the conjured armchair and settled in it to wait.

I stared at the rhythmic rise and fall of Snape's chest. It was soothing, almost mesmerizing.

I fell asleep.

"Where the fuck is my wand?"

His voice startled me and I almost tumbled out of the chair, stiff neck and screaming muscles notwithstanding. Muttering something incoherent at Snape, I rose and stumbled in the direction of his lab, where his ebony wand rested neatly on the worktable. My sleep-befuddled brain didn't consider using a Summoning Charm, and I had left my wand on the bedside table.

I picked up his wand, and when I turned around I found myself face-to-chest with Severus Snape.

Backing up a step, I saw him cock a sardonic eyebrow at me. I had forgotten how stealthily he had once been able to move, and hadn't heard him get out of bed. He had been awkward and stumbling since I entered his home.

"You forgot this," he said.

We traded wands, and I felt a little jolt when our fingers grazed each others' during the exchange. Touching him now was an altogether different experience than caring for the dying wizard he had been mere hours before.

"How do you feel?" I asked.

He frowned. "Surprisingly well for a man who should be dead at any moment." He held out one hand. It no longer resembled a claw, but a man's fully-articulated and surprisingly graceful hand. "What have you done?"

"It's not me, it's my H.I.P.S." When his mottled brown-black eyes instantly flew to the corresponding part of my anatomy, I blushed. "Not my hips, my H.I.P.S." I touched the bracelet on his wrist.

Instantly his attention shifted, but not before he flicked his eyes to my face, and I know he saw my heightened color. What might have been a smile tugged at one corner of his lips. Snape had always liked to be in a position of power, and it was a small enough thing to grant him.

"Explain, please." Snape crossed the lab, eyeing my encroachment into his domain with interest and a cocked eyebrow. He moved with his once-renowned, sinuous grace, and my heart did an odd little skip to see him so _himself_.

"One moment," I said while retrieving the drinking glass from his bedroom. When I returned to the lab, Snape's eyes lighted upon the empty glass, and then he opened his mouth to speak. I beat him to it. "I'll explain after you've had another dose of Seven Percent Solution."

He grunted. "Do you enjoy watching me retch so much? It's certainly one form of revenge."

Inexplicably, his taunt angered me. "Of course, I didn't enjoy it! You know I'm not here out of revenge!"

"Do I? Are you above revenge? I doubt Dolores Umbridge would see your insistence upon shoving liquids down my throat which, thus far, I've been unable to keep down, as benevolent interference."

"That toad deserved everything she got. She was sadistic and cruel, and enjoyed the petty power she held over children."

"The same could be said about me."

"You are entirely different." I spoke in the Bluestocking tone of voice I knew had driven my peers mad when I was a child, even as I measured another dose of the midnight blue solution for Snape.

"I'm sure Neville Longbottom would disagree with you."

"Neville's dead. Besides, even he believed you had ample reason for your actions. No one but Fudge and Percy Weasley believed Umbridge had sufficient reason to act as she did."

"Well, I'll remember to tell the next Gryffindor to spit in my face that I had good reasons… no… wait… I'll be dead. I'm sure they'll manage to defile my grave adequately."

"Stop talking like that! I'm not going to let you die!"

"How are you going to stop it?" His voice dropped, so low that I almost couldn't hear what he said.

I shoved the half-full glass into his hands. "Drink this." When he just looked at me, I said, "Look, I know you couldn't keep it down earlier, and that your physical state was on the verge of total collapse." When he attempted to set the glass on the worktable, I wrapped my hand around his and wouldn't let him relinquish it. "But I changed things. As I said before, the bracelets work at a cellular level, and I've managed to restore you to an earlier physical state. You should be able to digest the potion now."

"How have you done this? Have you tried this trick before or am I the first of your experiments?" Even as he questioned me, he pulled his hand from mine, but he didn't discard the glass.

"I've used them before. That's why I thought they'd work on you."

"If I drink this, you'll tell me everything?"

I almost smiled at his attempt to negotiate while at a disadvantage. It was good to see his Slytherin qualities emerge.

Still, the overall situation was desperate and I worried.

"Will you eat a little breakfast?" I held up a hand. "Not an onion scramble."

He downed the potion, then inclined his head in assent.

I grabbed my book bag and left the room. "Are you coming to eat?" I asked as I made for the stairs. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw him immediately behind me.

"Surprised?" There was a wry lilt to his voice.

I started down the stairs. "Well, yes."

"It will get you out of my house faster."

"Do you really want to die?" I stopped and turned to face him. The stairwell was dark, even in the late afternoon, but I could see his black eyes clearly. He might look better superficially, but his expression was that of a deeply haunted and wounded man.

I had never heard him sound so gentle as when he spoke then.

"It's inevitable, Miss Granger. The arsenic has become intrinsically bonded with my cellular structure. There's nothing you can do."

"I won't believe that."

He actually laughed. It was a rusty sort of laugh, but genuinely mirthful. "So Gryffindor. So idealistic."

"Not really. I just don't want to lose any more friends… er… people I know."

"We've never been friends." His eyes held mine for a long beat.

"No, we've never been friends, sir, but I would have liked it if we had been."

He broke our eye connection, his face a blank mask.

I had been too honest, and I sighed in frustration. "Let's eat something, and I will tell you why I believe you're not currently curled into a ball vomiting and having a seizure."

He nodded curtly, and I pushed my way into the small sitting room and on toward the kitchen.

I unpacked the rest of the foodstuffs I had brought from home before retrieving other items from his pantry with which to prepare a late tea. The sun was setting, casting an orange sort of light through the windows while I worked.

Shortly therafter, I realized Snape was still standing at the door of the butler's pantry. His expression was a familiar scowl.

"What?" I asked, pausing while I sliced tomatoes for a modified fry-up.

"You cleaned my kitchen."

"Well you didn't expect me to brew a potion in the mess that was here, did you?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he crossed to a sideboard and pulled out plates, tea cups and cutlery, and then proceeded to set the table. After that, he made the tea for our meal. It was an oddly domesticated and companionable few minutes, and I found it surprisingly pleasant.

When we sat down at the little nook to eat, I found Snape's eyes assessing me as if he could answer all his questions with a glance into my eyes. Remembering that he was an accomplished Legilimens, I supposed that he might be able to do that very thing.

He ate a last bite of tomato and chop, placing his silverware in the traditional balanced position which said he was finished with his meal. "Tell me," he demanded.

And so I did.

He was an excellent audience, quick and perceptive. He traced his lips with a finger while I explained the theory behind the bracelets and my speculation about the Seven Percent Solution. He asked few questions, but his attitude was no longer combative or a descent into verbal delirium.

With my whole heart, I wished I had met _this _man years ago.

"Tell me about the Chinese bezoar."

He didn't phrase it as a question, but I recognized it as one. "Niu Huang trichobezoars are composed entirely of hair from Chinese pasang antelopes. Because their home range is well within the Chinese Fireball's territory, they've developed a coping mechanism for the arsenical bite of the dragon. These bezoars are poison specific rather than the broad panacea goat bezoars tend to be. The Niu Huang absorbs and binds the arsenic before passing harmlessly out of the system."

He tapped his lips at each of my points.

"Why the Seven Percent Solution? Why not just shove the bezoar down my throat?"

"Two reasons, actually. First, I wanted to get the rhizome juice into your system, and secondly, coca leaves are horribly addictive. I wanted to counteract your body's reaction to them as well." I continued with my narrative, and he didn't ask another question until I finished.

"When you said you had tried this—" he tapped the bracelet around his right wrist, "—before, you had only done it once, and it was an impulse. Is that right?"

I nodded my head.

"It seems you were correct, at least in this instance. It's rather gratifying to know you've begun to think beyond the pages of a book."

It was entirely involuntary, but I felt the blush stain my cheeks.

"However, do you not see the flaw in your thinking?" When I didn't answer, he continued, "Even in this 'perfect' state—" his hands indicated himself, "—you're still using a cellular structure contaminated by arsenic."

"Yes, but—"

"But nothing. If you had given your Seven Percent Solution to me ten years - even seven years ago, it should have been able to restore my genetic structure over a period of time." His dark eyes speared into mine. "However, this _isn't_ seven years ago. Even if I wore the bracelets indefinitely, when they come off, I will return to my dying state. You offered me a glimmer of hope, before taking that as well."

I looked at him in horror.

"It was an incredibly cruel thing to do, Miss Granger." He rose from the chair and left the house.

I stared at his empty chair.

He was right.

With all my good intentions, all I had managed to do was to prolong his death. I had thought using the bracelets would allow Snape to remain in 'idealized form' until the Seven Percent Solution purged his body of the arsenic. I had calculated that over time, his natural bodily processes would slough off the tainted cells and replace them with 'idealized' cells.

What I didn't take into account was the length of time he had been using the dragon's egg powder. My H.I.P.S. couldn't revert to an idealized form older than five years, and it would take me more time than Snape had left to attempt to extend the bracelet's modification range. Even if we replaced every cell in his body with 'idealized' Snape cells, they, too, were lethal.

It had been unbelievably unkind of me to offer him something I couldn't possibly deliver.

I shoved the plate away from me and laid my head upon my wrists, giving into the tears which had been my annoyingly frequent companion over the past several days. I don't know how long I cried, but when my sobs became hiccups, I sat up.

Snape hadn't returned.

He could be seen through the window, in his garden, tending to his plants. There was something rather tragic about him watering and weeding and pruning, and I decided to take care of the plants after he was gone.

Waving my wand in a few half-hearted Cleaning Charms, I tidied up. I had a new appreciation for the reason his house had been kept in such lackluster condition. When death was inevitable and looming, clean dishes seemed rather insignificant.

Briefly, I considered and discarded the idea of joining Snape in the garden. Instead, I wandered into his sitting room, and looked at his books. I fingered Arsenius Jigger's _Magical Draughts and Potions _and _Magical Heiroglyphs and Logograms_ before noticing that Snape had retained a beautifully preserved copy of _Moste Potente Potions._ Touching the spines of bound knowledge was a soothing ritual, one I had indulged many times in my life. From forays into the local Muggle library when I was a child to the Hogwarts library, and later the Ministry's infinite resources, I had found books a respite to the cares and fears of my real life existence.

My fingers halted on the spine of an oddly sized book in blue. On its cover was the name _Severus Tobias Snape_. I pulled it out only to find my former teacher's baby book. My throat closed as I thought about his mother filling in the entries with loving care.

The book was irresistible.

I turned to the first page.

Eileen Prince Snape had loved her son with a lonely woman's need. His babyish firsts were all memorialized: footprints, hand prints, the dates he cut his teeth, and the date he rolled over. I learned that he had been a year old before he said his first word, mama. On one page there was a lock of silken black hair from his first haircut at age six. It was no wonder the book was oddly lumpy.

The book looked as if it had magically enlarged over the years. I had never seen anything like it before. Molly Weasley was the only witch who might have shown me these things had she still been alive.

What felt like a band constricted around my heart. There had been too many losses during my years in the wizarding world.

I was not resigned to this one.

I turned to a later entry in Snape's book. There was a picture of a skinny boy with long black hair and a solemn face standing on platform nine-and-three-quarters, a battered trunk on a trolley next to him. He didn't have a familiar. It didn't look like his family could afford one. On the facing page was one perfect lock of his silken black hair.

Another page revealed Severus Snape as a Chaser on the Slytherin House Quidditch team in his fourth year at school. He looked smug as he posed with his teammates and the 1974 Quidditch Cup. For his fifth year, Eileen Snape had affixed her son's impressive O.W.L. results onto a page. A slender lock of his hair was neatly sealed onto the facing page.

I then flipped to a family picture obviously taken in the back yard here at Spinner's End. Snape and his mother, a thin, grey-haired witch dressed entirely in Muggle clothing, stood between several terra cotta pots with flourishing herbs trailing down the sides. Mrs. Snape appeared ill, but when she looked at her son, her plain face was filled with pride and love. Snape looked as if he had just come down from Hogwarts. He was probably eighteen, tall and slender, and there was no scowl to mar his strong features. His hair was long and black, and he held himself with a hint of his later commanding presence. When he helped his mother to sit in a garden chair, he was as gentle as Ginny had been with her pygmy puff.

Brushing my finger tenderly over the picture, I almost choked on my regrets.

The image of Snape looked at me and smirked, flipping his long hair over his shoulder. It was the smirk that did it. I had seen that supercilious look on his face a hundred times. It was the look that said, _Missing the point aren't you, dunderhead._

I turned to the back of the book. It had stopped filling at the time Snape was in his early thirties, or so I surmised. He had always appeared older than his chronological age. I wondered if his mother had died, or they had become estranged in some way.

But it didn't really matter. What mattered was what I discovered on the next two pages.

One side held a picture of Severus Snape wearing his teaching robes. He was younger than I had ever known him, before the return of Voldemort and the need for Snape to resume his espionage. But the truly miraculous thing was on the facing page. It was a perfect specimen of the oily, black locks which curtained his hook-nosed face.

I could have kissed the book. In fact, I did kiss Severus Snape's startled image.

My answer was staring me in the face, if only I had the wit to see it sooner.

I spun, the book clasped to my breast. I had to find Snape.

He was seated in his armchair watching me.

I had no idea how long he'd been there, but my cheeks flamed. I expected him to say something rude, but he remained silent. Suddenly overcome by the enormity of my discovery, I needed to sit. I flopped onto the battered sofa and sank into its lumpy cushions, still clutching the baby book as if it was the answer to life itself.

In this case it was.

"I wasn't _that_ adorable," he said dryly.

I began to giggle and then to laugh. "That's not it. You weren't adorable, but you were very sweet." 

He suddenly loomed over me, reaching for the book. "Sweet? I have never been sweet."

Clasping the book to my chest, I refused to let him take it. He would have to hex me to remove it from my arms.

"To your mother you were."

He stopped attempting to pry the book from me. "My mother was obviously deluded."

"No, she wasn't. You haven't always been a nice man, but you are an ethical one."

He snorted.

"But that's immaterial," I said as I bounced to my feet, my excitement restored. He backed up a step. "What is material is that you have your mother to thank for saving your life."

"We've already discussed this. I'm a walking dead man. I don't want to play any more of your little save-the-world games. You've had your fun, now it's time to put the book down and for you to leave."

"Wait! You don't understand." I touched his arm as he turned away from me. He stopped, but didn't face me. "We can save your life. Your mother's love has given us a way. Look!" I flipped the book so he could see the picture and the hair.

Snape finally turned around and stared at the open pages uncomprehendingly. "I fail to see what my mother's obsessive need to chronicle my life has to do with my imminent death by self-induced arsenical poisoning."

"Your hair, Prof… oh, ruddy hell… Severus. Your hair!" I raised my eyes expectantly; he just glared at me. I knew the man was brilliant, but come on! I changed tactics. "How old were you when this picture was taken?"

He blinked and considered the question. "I was thirty. It was the summer I was named Head of House for Slytherin. My mother was very proud of my achievement. I was the youngest Head of House in two centuries."

"Excellent!" I almost cheered. My nipples tightened and a shudder of academic anticipation raced up my spine.

"What have you been drinking? Why the hell do you care what I looked like at thirty?" His eyes blinked as he fit the puzzle pieces together. "Oh, fuck!"

"Yes! Exactly!" I spun and practically sprinted up the narrow stairs of his house, his baby book nestled against my breasts.

Bursting into his lab, I quickly looked for the remaining vials of the potion Snape had destroyed after my arrival. "He doesn't have thirty days to brew this. Please, please be what I think you are."

"It is exactly what you thought it was," he said as he entered the room. "It would serve me right to have destroyed it in a fit of pique, and I will once again be the instrument of my own demise."

"Don't be so bloody melodramatic!" I snapped at him. "I'll find some if I have to steal it from the Ministry."

"I don't think you'll have to go to such lengths on my account." He reached past me, plucking two decanted bottles of Polyjuice Potion from among the array of failed antidotes. They were exactly where I had shelved them during my cleaning frenzy just after dawn. "There's no guarantee this will work, Miss Granger."

"If we follow your earlier line of logic, then there's no reason it shouldn't."

"It's hypothetical at best." He put the bottles on the worktable and turned toward the door, so I couldn't see his face.

I put the opened book next to the bottles of lumpy dark sludge that held perfectly brewed Polyjuice. Snape's pictured face stared up at me. Actually, he ogled my breasts, where they had been pressed against the picture for the past several minutes. I glared at the wizarding photograph before turning my attention to his real life counterpart. There wasn't anything to say in response to Snape's comments. He was absolutely correct. What I was proposing was hypothetical. But it was a chance.

"Aren't you going to rail at me? Refuse to leave my home? Bully me into drinking an experimental potion?" There was no malice to his words, indeed his tone was one I had heard him use when speaking with Minerva McGonagall on very rare occasions.

I maneuvered to look him in the face, meeting his eyes unflinchingly. "No. You were quite right. It was arrogant of me to assume you would want to live. It's your choice, and I won't take it from you."

Our eyes held for a very long time. I memorized the harsh planes of his face and almost counted the age lines around his eyes, before dropping my gaze to his surprisingly lush mouth which he kept pinched in a tight line most of the time.

"I—" he began to say, then stuttered to a halt.

I didn't attempt to fill the awkward moment. I simply waited for him to speak, to rip my good intentions to shreds and ask me to leave as he had wanted in the first place. This time I would go if he asked.

"I told you I never expected to survive the final conflict. When I did, I was already hopelessly addicted. I've spent the past five years looking for a cure. The last two have been a living nightmare, and I was very close to choosing a Draught of Peaceful Death before you so impetuously foisted yourself upon me."

My heart recognized his answer before my brain did, and I smiled at him.

To his credit, he attempted to smile back. It was a bit lopsided and a little sickly, but like him, it was rather endearing.

I shook off my bemusement. We still had a lot of work before us, and some of what was facing us would be very unpleasant for Snape. Before we began, however, I stuck my hand out toward him. "I'm Hermione Granger. I'm looking forward to working with you."

He pursed his lips. "You're such a Gryffindor." Nonetheless, he encased my hand in his. "Severus Snape. Now, get to work, _Hermione_."

With a grin on my face, I Summoned my bag. I would need to work out the calculations on the length of time he could safely wear the bracelets while we used the potion to recalibrate his genetic structure.

Four hours later, I was drawn from a complicated Arithmantic equation by the sound of sharp tapping. In unison, Snape's and my heads turned toward the window set between two cabinets.

Through the darkened glass, I could see an owl back-winging and waiting for entry. Snape waved his wand in a complicated arc, and the glass opened to allow ingress to a snowy white owl.

"Hedwig!"

Snape chuckled at my surprise, and resumed isolating active chemical ingredients in the juiced Mandrake rhizomes.

Hedwig landed on my raised forearm, her wings bating wildly to minimize the impact of her landing, but her claws broke through my skin. I bit my lip to keep from crying out in pain. She dropped the parchment she carried on the worktable and nipped gently at my hair in apology for hurting me.

I recognized Ron's writing on the scroll, and snuck a look at Snape. He was ostensibly establishing the age of the Mandrakes and paying me no attention. It had been exhilarating working with him for the past few hours, and I didn't want to jeopardize the tentative beginnings we seemed to have forged.

Hedwig hopped onto the worktable, careful not to disturb our work. She was the most considerate owl I had ever seen in the wizarding world, and I smoothed her pinfeathers in thanks.

Then, knowing I needed to see what Ron wanted, I unrolled the parchment. His note was brief:

_Hermione:_

_I hope the information was helpful. How is Snape? If he needs anything… if you need anything, just let me know. I'm only an Apparition away._

_Ron_

Snape's wand touched my skin and I jumped.

"Those will fester if you don't take care of them. Not that I care."

"I'd hate to inconvenience you."

"Know-it-alls are such a bother."

We spoke as if he hadn't just healed each of the small puncture wounds in my forearm.

"Has Weasley discovered your whereabouts and is threatening my life?"

"You might be surprised," I said quietly, and handed him the letter.

He gave me an assessing look and then read what Ron had written. His expression didn't change, but I noticed his shoulders relax.

We didn't speak of it again.

Within an hour, the sun had set and our calculations were as precise as we could make them. The plan was as simple as destroying a Horcrux: Snape would remove the bracelets and drink the Polyjuice Potion. I would calibrate the H.I.P.S. to his genetically idealized state. Then we would wait for the Polyjuice Potion to wear off before replacing the bracelets. At that point, Snape would begin a course of treatment with the restorative Seven Percent Solution.

I was as nervous as when Ron, Harry and I had faced Voldemort that last time. I chewed my bottom lip until I tasted blood.

Organizing my lists chronologically, I spoke to the parchment. "You realize, Severus, that the maximum length of time I've worn the H.I.P.S. in disguise is a twelve hour period. I think I've managed to extend it by fifty percent."

After a minute, he replied, "I never thought I would be saying this to you, but I have a reasonable degree of confidence in your work."

I jerked my head up and my mouth dropped open. I'm sure it was most unbecoming. "You do?"

His eyes were alight with humor. "You'll catch flies with that mouth, Hermione."

I started to shove him with my shoulder, and froze in mid-action. It was something I would have done with Ron, but I'd never before considered Severus Snape as someone I could touch casually.

The look on his face told me he knew what I had almost done. The humor he so recently displayed was suddenly carefully hidden, and he faced me with that bland mask once more in place.

I felt like I had been hexed.

Gryffindor brashness was sometimes helpful in overcoming inadvertent blunders, so I leaned into him again. Only this time, I finished the motion, brushing my shoulder against his. It had the same effect on him that his compliment had had on me. He froze, his mouth almost gaping.

"You'll catch flies with that mouth, Severus."

He gave a short bark of laughter and I giggled.

It was nerves.

We stared at each other for a long, quiet moment, and then I scribbled a note to Ron telling him everything was fine and thanks for his offer.

Hedwig flew out the open window, and Snape cast the spell to replace the glass. Then he turned to me and his prematurely aged face was entirely serious.

It was time.

He grabbed the cup filled with lumpy Polyjuice Potion, and I followed him to his bedroom, carrying several items to ease his comfort when the H.I.P.S. were removed.

Neither of us spoke while we prepared.

When we were ready, Snape sat in one of the two armchairs we had transfigured after banishing the one I had conjured. It made for a crowded room, but he insisted.

Four minutes later, I cursed myself roundly while levitating his convulsing body to the bed. The change had been so rapid and so drastic I was unable to act quickly enough to prevent his falling to the floor.

How could I have forgotten the state I'd found him in? How could I have been so thoughtless?

I knew that the sooner he was stabilized the sooner I could get him to drink the Polyjuice. I fervently hoped he could keep it in his system long enough for it to take effect.

Snape curled into a fetal position atop the duvet.

I knelt on the floor next to his side of the bed, tenderly brushing stringy hair from his face. His body odor was stale and strong, and his harsh features seemed more gaunt than before.

His eyes were closed, and I assumed he was either sleeping or unconscious. I stood, but his claw-like hand grasped my wrist faster than a striking serpent. "Don't go."

"All right." I knelt on the floor at his bedside. It was hard and I wasn't terribly comfortable, but if Snape wanted me close by, then I wasn't going anywhere. I shifted until I was sitting cross-legged. He still hadn't let go of my wrist.

"All right? You'll stay? Do you promise?" he whispered, his voice raspy and hoarse.

"Of course I'll stay with you."

"Oh, Dryad!"

He pulled my hand to his mouth and kissed the palm. It was something he had done once before, only that time I had been bewildered. This time my heart clenched painfully. It wasn't me he was asking, it was his fantasy.

I closed my eyes, too, and couldn't prevent myself from cupping his cheek when he loosened his grip. He leaned into my caress, and I thought that if he died, I might never be the same again.

We remained in that position until his breathing evened out. I slid my hand from his face, but his fingers tightened around mine, and I opened my eyes to see him staring at me out of bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes. However, he appeared entirely lucid.

"Did you mean it?" he asked.

At my blank look, he rolled over on his back, turning his head away from me.

I rose from the floor and perched on the edge of his bed, my bum pressed against his hips.

He refused to look at me.

It took me a long, awkward silence to understand. "I thought you were talking to a hallucination. But I meant what I said. I won't leave."

"Even if I call you Dryad?" He still wouldn't look at me.

"Even if you call me Dunderhead. I'm not leaving you, Severus." I rose from the bed, and he grabbed my hand again. I looked into his white, pinched face, and forestalled whatever he was about to say. "I have to give you the Polyjuice now. I don't want to wait too long."

I plucked the small green bottle from the other things we had arranged, and when I handed it to him, neither of us said a word.

Without closing his eyes, he watched me as he swallowed the half-gill of the foul-tasting potion. He gagged, and dropped the empty bottle.

I caught it before it hit the floor, and grabbed the small basin I had prepared. Fortunately, he didn't need it.

His muscles began to ripple and his face crumpled in a rictus of discomfort, but within seconds, his hair shortened and thickened. The lines on his face filled in, and his body filled out; his hands had fewer scars on them. The changes were similar to when he had first donned the disguising bracelets, but this time the differences were more pronounced.

He gasped, and I sank onto the bed within arm's reach. His body continued to transform for an achingly long minute, but when it was complete, he blinked his thick-lashed, solid black eyes and looked at me. My breath caught in my throat, and his healthy masculine scent overrode the faint sickly undertones.

He looked exactly as he had in the wizarding photograph, but in the flesh, I found his form distinctly disturbing in an entirely feminine way.

Most people thought I had dated Viktor Krum because he was famous, but they were wrong. I dated Viktor because he was intelligent, competitive, and there was something about the way he looked that caused me to react viscerally. When the war was over, we had dated for a short time. He had spent the war years in America playing in their national Quidditch league with dozens of fawning groupies dancing to his every whim. I had spent those same years living hand-to-mouth, fighting a guerilla war on the front lines. I had killed people and held dying friends in my arms. He had broken a leg in a collision with a stadium pillar. We had grown too different to bridge the gap between us, but I hadn't stopped seeing him because he was no longer attractive to me.

The reason my thoughts had veered wildly off into this tangent was because Severus Snape, in his Polyjuiced thirty-year-old body, looked a great deal like Viktor Krum at twenty-eight. I felt as if I had been hit by a rogue Bludger.

"I'm still not as adorable as my mother believed."

"Perhaps not, but I'd argue that you're still a good man."

He rolled off the other side of the bed. His fluid movement was a far cry from the convulsing state he had been in not five minutes before, and I marveled at the changes. Shaking my head, I looked at the small clock on the bedside table. It was three in the morning. It would take me awhile to recalibrate the bracelets, and time was too precious to waste.

I moved to his side at the window.

He was looking out at the back garden and the mews beyond. Then he looked down at his arm… his left arm. The Dark Mark was quiescent, but still there. Snape brushed his right hand over it, and I touched his bicep cautiously. His eyes flew to mine and his hand covered the mark, as if to hide it from my sight.

"We don't have a lot of time, Severus. Please put the bracelets on."

He moved like someone lost in thought, and I supposed he was. Putting the bracelets on was far more difficult this time than the last. It seemed his hands had shrunk as his health deteriorated. Irritated by the impediment, he forced the second bracelet over his knuckles so roughly he removed skin.

Having my wand in hand, I healed the small abrasions.

His eyes flicked to mine, but I only said, "After the first time Hedwig landed on my bare skin, I learned to wear a long-sleeved shirt."

After his small cuts were healed, I levitated the companion armchair to face his, and taking his left forearm in hand, I set to work calibrating the bracelets to his thirty-year old body. The parchment with my calculations lay open on the small table holding our paraphernalia, but I didn't need to refer to it.

I knew what I was doing.

I flicked, swished, jabbed and looped over the precious metal bands which would help save Snape's life. We would know if I was successful in another – I checked the clock - twelve minutes.

If it didn't work, we could try again, but I didn't want to put Snape through the ordeal too many times.

The taste of copper in my mouth was unexpected, and I realized I had been biting my lip for some time. Finally, with two minutes to spare, I sat back in the armchair and closed my eyes.

"I knew it was you," he said again.

I opened one eye. "Sorry?"

"When I called you Dryad. When I asked if you'd stay. I couldn't get the right name out, but I knew it was you, Hermione."

My throat was tight. "My answer is still the same, Severus. I'm not going to leave."

He smiled then, and it was the smile a man gives a woman he finds appealing. I felt like I had swallowed a Flutterby bush whole.

We stared at one another, and his hair began to grow.

The Polyjuice had begun to wear off.

I sat up straight. "Do you want to get on the bed?"

"No." The smile was gone, and his expression was as grim as it had been in the final battle between Harry and Voldemort.

"Please." I was almost begging.

"No."

"Do you know how much I dislike having to _Mobilicorpus _you when you have a seizure? While I'm moving you, I can't help you. I hate that!"

His expression was unreadable, but he rose from the chair and lay upon the bed. His face was growing thinner and his eyes were becoming red-rimmed again. I stepped to his side and took one of his hands in mine. I could feel the muscles rippling beneath my fingers, but his grip was like Devil's Snare.

His scent altered from healthy male to the sickly sour odor I now recognized.

The first convulsion caught me by surprise.

He hadn't changed fully back into his present-day self yet. His eyes snapped to mine, and for the first time I saw that he was afraid.

The idea he might be dying now, before I could save him, terrified me. I climbed on the bed to hold his flailing body. This was the worst seizure yet, and he clouted me in the eye. The pain was insignificant to the fact he might really be dying.

His body heaved one last time and he lay still - perfectly still.

I couldn't hear his breath and I couldn't see his chest rising. "No!" I cried, and clutched him tightly.

How he had come to mean so much to me, so quickly, I wasn't sure, but his life mattered. So much it was almost overpowering.

At that moment of realization, I felt his chest rise.

He was alive.

He was unconscious.

It didn't matter to the H.I.P.S. I pulled his hands toward me, one after the other, and dialed the copper and platinum rings to the correct positions. Then I retrieved my wand and climbed back onto the bed, pulling him across my lap and tenderly raking his greasy hair off his face. If he lived to be a hundred, I knew what he would look like on his death bed.

I swished and jabbed, and said, "_Severus Superior._"

I waited. When his body began to revert to his younger physique I almost sobbed.

Within moments, his body had fully morphed.

I knew he would have to go through this transformation again, but as the Seven Percent Solution took effect, I hoped this would be the worst.

His slightly ragged breathing grew regular and deep. Snape needed every bit of healthy rest he could get, and I knew I should get off the bed, but I couldn't bring myself to release him.

An hour had passed, and it was four in the morning. I leaned my head against the aged, brass headboard, and breathed in Snape's healthy masculine scent.

When I was just on the edge of sleep, he moved, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me closer to him. I assumed he was asleep, and I rubbed soothing circles on his back while shifting to a more comfortable position.

The clock on the bedside table read five-fifteen. I had been in his home for twenty-four hours. I almost laughed when an old Muggle television jingle ran through my head. What a difference a day makes.

I felt him speak before I heard him; the rumbling in his chest set off an answering vibration in mine.

"Why did you come?"

"I wanted to help you."

"I've needed help for a long time, Hermione. Why now?"

I was quiet for a few minutes, organizing my thoughts. "I don't think I can say this without offending you." He shifted, trying to pull away but I tightened my hold. "This is what I was afraid of. Please just hear me out, Severus."

He desisted, but his body was rigid, and he unwrapped his arms from around me.

I felt bereft without them, but I doggedly continued. "When I recognized you the other day at Pennyweight's, I was shocked by how ill you looked. It's not as if we've ever been friends before, but—"

"You say it like we're friends now."

I could hear the sneer in his voice, but I understood him better. "Aren't we?" I asked softly.

When he didn't respond, I continued. "I needed to find out what had happened to you. I'd heard nothing about you after the trials, and truthfully, I hadn't given it much thought. I was too busy recovering from my injuries and coping with my parents' and Harry's deaths. I found work I liked and have pretty much immersed myself in it since then. But when I saw you - I couldn't not find you. Do you understand?"

"It was guilt and pity."

His body was stiff and unyielding, and I knew that I had hurt him. Still, I wouldn't cheapen our nascent friendship with a lie. "Perhaps to begin with, but that didn't last very long at all. You're demanding and irascible, and I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you today. It's like you're another Unfathomable. Oh, fuck!"

"What the hell is an Unfathomable?"

"Er… I can't tell you or else I'll have to _Obliviate _you."

He snorted, and I felt some of the tension ease from his body. "You're already so far over the boundaries of acceptable behavior I don't think telling me what an Unfathomable is will matter very much."

I blushed. He was right… again. It was an annoying habit of his. "I'll tell you after you take the Seven Percent Solution and we get some sleep. I've been awake pretty much since I saw you the other day."

He stiffened again and I let him pull away.

He rose from the bed, walking with innate grace – so unlike Viktor's duck-like walk - to the small table where we had placed the things we would need. After measuring his first dose of the Solution, Snape drank it immediately.

I hadn't moved from the middle of his bed. The lines of our relationship were so blurred I decided to ignore them altogether. We would make our own boundaries.

He turned, eyed my position, and glowered at me, obviously expecting it to cause me to scramble off the bed.

In the almost dawn, I thought the play of light and dark on his face was captivating and illuminating at the same time. "I haven't lied to you, Severus. You know I no longer pity you, and if you don't believe that, I give you permission to use Legilimency." His breath whistled through his teeth at my offer, but I wasn't finished. "I'm not leaving, even if you call me Dryad."

I merely raised an eyebrow at him, as he came to the side of the bed. For the first time, he seemed to notice how different his bedding was.

"Slytherin green?"

"It didn't clash with the wallpaper, and I didn't really think you were a pink flower type of man."

"Bloody right."

He towered over me a bit longer, then I opened my arms. Wordlessly, he accepted the invitation, and we settled back into our former position. I was keenly aware of him; his fit, masculine form pressed against me. It was wonderful.

"You do realize," he said into my neck, blowing at an annoying curl that seemed to tickle his nose, "it will take some time before we know whether this course of treatment will be successful."

"True. But you're brilliant and I'm stubborn, so I have a good feeling about this." He chuckled and I thrilled at the sound. "As for the length of time it will take," I said, "I'll just have to take a holiday."

"From the Unfathomables?"

"Quit fishing. I'll tell you after you get some sleep. And, yes, from the Unfathomables."

"It'll be twenty-eight days at a minimum."

"It might even take fifty-six." I ran my hand between his shoulder blades. He had a strong back, and I could feel the muscle definition under my fingers. "Maybe a leave of absence would be better."

He was silent, but he relaxed even more, and his arms gathered me close.

I murmured, "You do realize what it means if this works, don't you?"

"You'll be a rich woman."

His breath puffed along my collarbone, and I dropped my head back against the headboard. My eyes were closed, and I felt lassitude stealing along my limbs. I was exhausted, but I felt more optimistic than at any point since the moment I had almost fallen into him at Pennyweight's Apothecary.

"_We_ will be rich, Severus, but that's beside the point. We might have found a cure for lycanthropy and possibly even cancer… or the long-term effects of spell damage."

"Only if an adult witch or wizard has a devoted mother. But there are many practical and ethical considerations to mull over."

"To debate, you mean."

"As you wish, Dryad."

At his use of the name, I sat up, suddenly fearful he had a relapsed or I had miscalculated my adjustments on the H.I.P.S.

He grumbled at being dislodged and gave me an accusatory look.

The light from a rainy morning began to lighten the room, and I looked him right in the eyes.

Understanding crossed his face, and his mouth softened. "I know where I am, and who you are, Hermione." When I breathed a sigh of relief, he rolled onto his side, facing me. "Go to sleep."

"All right." I settled onto my side of the bed, but it didn't feel right. I turned toward him. "I'll need to brew more Seven Percent Solution tomorrow. May I use your lab instead of the kitchen?"

His eyes were inscrutable. "You may."

"Thank you."

Our awareness of one another shifted once more. I slid closer to him, but then sat up, propping pillows behind me before settling in a semi-recumbent position. I gave him an expectant look, and his cheeks flushed. They matched the color of mine.

Snape said not a single word as he maneuvered himself into my arms, but it seemed just right somehow.

"Thank you for letting me help save your life, Severus."

He snuggled closer, his face resting against my breasts. I was becoming used to the sound of his breathing patterns, and it sounded as if he was on the verge of sleep.

Still, he replied, "Thank you for saving my life, Hermione."

As daylight crept through the windows of the old house, bringing hope of another day, I bent and kissed the crown of his head.

"I would do it again in a heartbeat."

~o0o~

Fin


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